How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations

Dirk van der Linden; Anna Zamansky; Irit Hadar

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_28

How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations

Dirk van der Linden, Anna Zamansky, Irit Hadar

Department of Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

21 Citations (Scopus)

353 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The Physics of Notations [9] (PoN) is a design theory presenting nine principles that can be used to evaluate and improve the cognitive effectiveness of a visual notation. The PoN has been used to analyze existing standard visual notations (such as BPMN, UML, etc.), and is commonly used for evaluating newly introduced visual notations and their extensions. However, due to the rather vague and abstract formulation of the PoN's principles, they have received different interpretations in their operationalization. To address this problem, there have been attempts to formalize the principles, however only a very limited number of principles was covered. This research-in-progress paper aims to better understand the difficulties inherent in operationalizing the PoN, and better separate aspects of PoN, which can potentially be formulated in mathematical terms from those grounded in user-specific considerations.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling
Editors	Rainer Schmidt, Wided Guédria, Ilia Bider, Sérgio Guerreiro
Publisher	Springer, Cham
Pages	448-462
Number of pages	15
ISBN (Print)	9783319394299
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_28
Publication status	Published - 2016

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
ISSN (Print)	1865-1348
ISSN (Electronic)	1865-1356

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10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_28

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van der Linden, D., Zamansky, A., & Hadar, I. (2016). How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations. In R. Schmidt, W. Guédria, I. Bider, & S. Guerreiro (Eds.), Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling (pp. 448-462). (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_28

van der Linden, Dirk ; Zamansky, Anna ; Hadar, Irit. / How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations. Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. editor / Rainer Schmidt ; Wided Guédria ; Ilia Bider ; Sérgio Guerreiro. Springer, Cham, 2016. pp. 448-462 (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing).

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abstract = "The Physics of Notations [9] (PoN) is a design theory presenting nine principles that can be used to evaluate and improve the cognitive effectiveness of a visual notation. The PoN has been used to analyze existing standard visual notations (such as BPMN, UML, etc.), and is commonly used for evaluating newly introduced visual notations and their extensions. However, due to the rather vague and abstract formulation of the PoN's principles, they have received different interpretations in their operationalization. To address this problem, there have been attempts to formalize the principles, however only a very limited number of principles was covered. This research-in-progress paper aims to better understand the difficulties inherent in operationalizing the PoN, and better separate aspects of PoN, which can potentially be formulated in mathematical terms from those grounded in user-specific considerations.",

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van der Linden, D, Zamansky, A & Hadar, I 2016, How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations. in R Schmidt, W Guédria, I Bider & S Guerreiro (eds), Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, Springer, Cham, pp. 448-462. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_28

How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations. / van der Linden, Dirk; Zamansky, Anna; Hadar, Irit.
Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. ed. / Rainer Schmidt; Wided Guédria; Ilia Bider; Sérgio Guerreiro. Springer, Cham, 2016. p. 448-462 (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

TY - GEN

T1 - How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations

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AU - Zamansky, Anna

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AB - The Physics of Notations [9] (PoN) is a design theory presenting nine principles that can be used to evaluate and improve the cognitive effectiveness of a visual notation. The PoN has been used to analyze existing standard visual notations (such as BPMN, UML, etc.), and is commonly used for evaluating newly introduced visual notations and their extensions. However, due to the rather vague and abstract formulation of the PoN's principles, they have received different interpretations in their operationalization. To address this problem, there have been attempts to formalize the principles, however only a very limited number of principles was covered. This research-in-progress paper aims to better understand the difficulties inherent in operationalizing the PoN, and better separate aspects of PoN, which can potentially be formulated in mathematical terms from those grounded in user-specific considerations.

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van der Linden D, Zamansky A, Hadar I. How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations. In Schmidt R, Guédria W, Bider I, Guerreiro S, editors, Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. Springer, Cham. 2016. p. 448-462. (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing). Epub 2016 Jun 7. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_28

How Cognitively Effective is a Visual Notation? On the Inherent Difficulty of Operationalizing the Physics of Notations

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