Automating the design of graphical presentations of relational information
ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)
A comparison of techniques for the specification of external system behavior
Communications of the ACM
Cognitive dimensions of notations
Proceedings of the fifth conference of the British Computer Society, Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group on People and computers V
Software requirements: objects, functions, and states
Software requirements: objects, functions, and states
Object-oriented modeling and design
Object-oriented modeling and design
Formal specifications as constructive diagrams
Microprocessing and Microprogramming - Special volume: short notes from Euromicro '92
The non-designer's design book: design and typographic principles for the visual novice
The non-designer's design book: design and typographic principles for the visual novice
Why looking isn't always seeing: readership skills and graphical programming
Communications of the ACM
Visual programming in a visual domain: a case study of cognitive dimensions
HCI '94 Proceedings of the conference on People and computers IX
Software engineering (5th ed.)
Software engineering (5th ed.)
A taxonomy and evaluation of formalisms for the specification of interactive systems
HCI '95 Proceedings of the HCI'95 conference on People and computers X
External cognition: how do graphical representations work?
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
Software engineering: theory and practice
Software engineering: theory and practice
The Unified Modeling Language user guide
The Unified Modeling Language user guide
Requirements Engineering: A Good Practice Guide
Requirements Engineering: A Good Practice Guide
Formally Comparing and Informing Notation Design
HCI 97 Proceedings of HCI on People and Computers XII
Analysis of Software System Requirements Models
ASWEC '96 Proceedings of the 1996 Australian Software Engineering Conference
On Formalism in Specifications
IEEE Software
The untrained eye: how languages for software specification support understanding in untrained users
Human-Computer Interaction
Software Language Engineering
Twelve years of diagrams research
Journal of Visual Languages and Computing
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This paper presents an approach to evaluating the intelligibility of diagrammatic languages used in the specification of software. Research suggests that specification languages can be assessed in terms of properties that influence the intelligibility of representations produced using the languages. The paper describes the properties identified and highlights three in particular that have been shown to influence the intelligibility of representations: motivation of symbols in the language; the extent to which the language allows exploitation of human visual perception; and the amount of structure inherent in the language. The paper argues that the first two of these properties are not present to any great extent in diagrammatic languages used in software specification. In order to enhance the intelligibility of software specifications, we suggest that more attention should be paid to ways in which these languages can exploit the amount of structure inherent in the language.