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This article illustrates a method in which scenarios provide an integration of task analysis and design envisionment, a basic level of design representation. Scenario representations can be elaborated as prototypes, through the use of storyboard, video, and rapid prototyping tools. They are the minimal contexts for developing user-oriented design rationale. A given design decision can be evaluated and documented in terms of its specific consequences within particular scenarios. Scenarios and elements of scenario-based design rationale can be generalized and abstracted using theories of human activity, enabling the accumulation and development of knowledge attained in the course of design. One cannot rely only on observation to build a scenario representation. Developing scenarios through the coordinated use of direct empirical observation and abstractions from theories of human activity has the additional benefits of continually emphasizing to the designer continuities among various design projects. System design is, of course, highly creative, but few systems are completely novel. INSETS: A Smalltalk tutorial scenario "creating UpperCasePane":.;A Smalltalk Guru scenario, contrasting "copy down" and ...;Some causal relations implicit in the UpperCasePane scenario:..

Discusses the potential problems of using intelligent advisory interfaces for advisory support. Simulation of an online intelligent help facility in a learning-by-doing task environment; Use of interface simulation as a technique for investigating issues in intelligent help; Basic application tasks and typical user errors.

The article discusses issues related to "advice-giving" approach in human-computer interaction. Many researchers are of the view that the motivational cost of learning to use a computer system can be reduced through the use of intelligent system monitors that adjust to the needs of specific users and combine both learning and work at the system. Presently, the work on advice-giving systems focuses on system-initiated advice giving in the context of user error. The development process for advisory systems should develop, codify, and routinize the use of behavioral evaluation techniques for them to be effective. INSETS: Advisory Knowledge Issues;Advisory Dialogue Issues.

Focuses on a training interface for a commercial word processor designed to eliminate typical and troublesome error states. Functions of the training interface; Common errors committed by users of high-function application systems; Characteristics of the training interface.

Building community networks is, in some respects, an odd idea. Networks facilitate interaction among individuals who are physically remote, in distributed work groups and interest groups. This article in an overview of the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) in Virginia which is in operation since October 1993. It is a technologically advanced community network. The project was originally constituted as a partnership among the town of Blacksburg, Virginia Tech University, and Bell Atlantic Corp. to improve community networking service to the level available on the Virginia Tech campus. Bell Atlantic agreed to install a number 5 ESS digital electronic switch and to run T1 Ethernet to the public library as well as to several hundred apartments and some of the town's public schools. The BEV provides access to a huge volume of information and services; including health information from local physicians, local bus schedules, projects by school children, the rugby football club schedule, and access to the Internet. The most important lesson from the BEV project to date is that an advanced network infrastructure provides the only opportunity for a community network.

Evaluations of training material serve many goals and are characteristically underresourced. The article describes a framework for managing training evaluation in such contexts. Enumerating features of a tutorial would be an intrinsic evaluation, for example, a given tutorial may immediately involve learners in realistic tasks. A set of such features, along with their instructional rationale, would constitute an intrinsic evaluation of the tutorial. Such an evaluation could be used formatively, to direct design changes, or summatively, to gauge a final design product, and perhaps to contrast it with other training products. Intrinsic evaluations are often conducted early in a training development project, to characterize the state of the art and generate requirements, and at the end of the project, to market or position the final product. Pay-off evaluation produces solid facts, but often these facts are difficult to interpret. A high error rate is problematic, but it may not be clear what aspects of the training caused the errors.

The article focuses on symbolic modeling. Modeling is a complex activity of abstracting information and knowledge from a particular domain in order to achieve a model containing the essentials from the perspective of the modelers and their given goals. Symbolic modeling is employed in a variety of fields. Examples include task and domain modeling in human-computer interaction, semantic data modeling for database systems, knowledge acquisition and representation in artificial intelligence and object-oriented (OO) modeling in software engineering. At the current state of practice, OO approaches seem to be having a strong impact on software development. Some of the major OO analysis and design methods also led to the definition of the so-called Unified Modeling Language (UML). The availability of such a standardized diagrammatic language may be important for the practice of symbolic modeling. One of the strong aspects of diagrammatic languages such as the UML is their support of visual modeling.

Introduces a series of articles on computer software design, published in the November 1988 issue of the periodical 'Communications of the ACM.' Studies of professional designers that produced specific technical proposals for improving software tools; Design and exploration of software documentation; Characteristics of design activity that have taken place over substantial spans of time.