We describe an approach to user interface design based on ideas from social science, narratology (the theory of stories), cognitive science, and a new area called algebraic semiotics. Social analysis helps to identify certain roles for users with their associated requirements, and suggests ways to make proofs more understandable, while algebraic semiotics, which combines semiotics with algebraic specification, provides rigorous theories for interface functionality and for a certain technical notion of quality. We apply these techniques to designing user interfaces for a distributed cooperative theorem proving system, whose main component is a website generation and proof assistance tool called Kumo. This interface integrates formal proving, proof browsing, animation, informal explanation, and online background tutorials, drawing on a richer than usual notion of proof. Experience with using the interface is reported, and some conclusions are drawn.

An approach to information visualization based on algebraic semiotics is introduced, and illustrated with examples. Semiotics is the general theory of signs, and algebraic semiotics is a new approach combining algebraic abstract data type theory with a grounding in social reality. The most important new ideas are to use semiotic spaces for systems of related signs, semiotic morphisms for representations of signs, and preservation orderings for the quality of representations.

This paper describes the Tatami project at UCSD, which is developing a system to support distributed cooperative software development over the web, and in particular, the validation of concurrent distributed software. The main components of our current prototype are a proof assistant, a generator for documentation websites, a database, an equational proof engine, and a communication protocol to support distributed cooperative work. We believe behavioral specification and verification are important for software development, and for this purpose we use first order hidden logic with equational atoms. The paper also briefly describes some novel user interface design methods that have been developed and applied in the project

Contemporary business process systems are built to automate routine procedures. Automation demands well-understood domains, repetitive processes, clear organisational roles, an established terminology, and predefined plans. Knowledge work is not like that. Plans for knowledge intensive processes are elaborated and reinterpreted as the work progresses. Interactive process models are created and updated by the project participants to reflect evolving plans. The execution of such models is controlled by users and only partially automated. An interactive process system should - Enable modelling by end users, - Integrate support for ad-hoc and routine work, - Dynamically customise functionality and interfaces, and - Integrate learning and knowledge management in everyday work.

: We describe a new approach to interface design called algebraic semiotics, combining semiotics with algebraic specification to give a rigorous theory of representation quality, and we apply it to the tatami distributed cooperative proving project. This project uses standard html, Java, etc. for remote proof browsing, servers for remote proof execution, a protocol to maintain truth of distributed cooperative proofs, and a tool combining proof assistance with website editing. Its proof paradigm reduces theorems to problems solvable by proof servers. ProofWebs integrate browsing, execution, animation, and informal explanation with formal proofs, and their design has been driven by semiotic ideas. 1 Introduction The landscape of theorem proving can be seen as two main peaks with a great plane between. These peaks represent fully automatic theorem provers and proof checking theorem provers; the plane represents the difficulty of combining their virtues. The peaks are steep and dark bec...

recent advances in web technology, interface design, and specification. Our effort to improve the usability of such systems has led us into algebraic semiotics, while our effort to develop better formal methods for distributed concurrent systems has led us into hidden algebra and fuzzy logic. This paper discusses the Tatami system design, especially its software architecture, and its user interface principles. New work in the latter area includes an extension of algebraic semiotics to dynamic multimedia interfaces, and integrating Gibsonian affordances with algebraic semiotics. 1

Abstract: This paper discusses the role of narrative in the expression and transmission of social knowledge as a specific type of tacit knowledge. Narrative is a central mechanism by which social knowledge is conveyed. Narrative provides a bridge between the tacit and the explicit, allowing tacit social knowledge to be demonstrated and learned, without the need to propositionalize it. Institutions can best maintain their stock of stories by providing occasions on which they can be told. Archival systems such as data bases, lessons learned systems, and video records are less effective, particularly when they attempt to store records or transcripts of oral stories. However, they can be improved by attention to key design dimensions, including appropriate allocation of the effort required from system administrators and users, and attention to translation between genres.

The Tatami project is building a system to support software engineering over the internet, exploiting recent advances in web technology, interface design, and specification. Our effort to improve the usability of such systems led us into algebraic semiotics, while our effort to develop better formal methods for distributed concurrent systems led us into hidden algebra. We discuss the Tatami system design, especially user interface issues, and sketch an extension of algebraic semiotics for interface dynamics. 1 Introduction The Tatami project has pursued three main goals: 1. explore novel multimedia interface design principles, for easing the use of complex interactive systems; 2. build and use a generic distributed environment for cooperative work; and 3. verify distributed concurrent software. We discuss these goals in turn. The first is motivated by the difficulties many practicing engineers have with formal methods tools. We have taken theorem provers as a typically difficult c...

Traditional approaches to requirements elicitation stress systematic and rational analysis and representation of organizational context and system requirements. This paper argues that the introduction of any computer-based system to an organization transforms the organization and changes the work patterns of the system’s users in the organization. These changes interact with the users ’ values and beliefs and trigger emotional responses which are sometimes directed against the computerbased system and its proponents. The paper debunks myths about how smoothly such organizational transformations take place, describes case studies showing how organizational transformation really takes place, and introduces and confirms by case studies some guidelines for eliciting requirements and the relevant emotional issues for a computer-based system that is being introduced into an organization to change its work patterns. 1

Data Types and Algebraic Semantics The history of programming languages, and to a large extent of software engineering as a whole, can be seen as a succession of ever more powerful abstraction mechanisms. The first stored program computers were programmed in binary, which soon gave way to assembly languages that allowed symbolic codes for operations and addresses. fortran began the spread of "high level" programming languages, though at the time it was strongly opposed by many assembly programmers; important features that developed later include blocks, recursive procedures, flexible types, classes, inheritance, modules, and genericity. Without going into the philosophical problems raised by abstraction (which in view of the discussion of realism in Section 4 may be considerable), it seems clear that the mathematics used to describe programming concepts should in general get more abstract as the programming concepts get more abstract. Nevertheless, there has been great resistance to u...