Abstract

A better understanding of the visual character of languages is important in developing our ability to exploit the human visual system. I briefly outline Goodman's distinction between notational and analog languages, and describe its use in developing the notion of syntactic and semantic density as the defining characteristic of visual languages. Several languages are evaluated for their use of density. I conclude that practical languages are most visually effective when their layout is constrained by an important semantic domain. 1. Introduction. Visual programming has a credibility problem. As in user interface design, hypertext, and artificial intelligence, solid work in visual programming is often drowned in the ballyhoo of extravagant claims. And as is also true in the other areas, workers in visual programming are not completely without fault. We are generally quite ready to claim, as does Shu: Pictures are more powerful than words as a means of communication. They can convey mor...

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