Interfaces to Database Systems (IDS94): Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Interfaces to Database Systems, Lancaster University, 13–15 July 1994 PDF
Preview Interfaces to Database Systems (IDS94): Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Interfaces to Database Systems, Lancaster University, 13–15 July 1994
WORKSHOPS IN COMPUTING Series edited by C. 1. van Rijsbergen Also in this series Interfaces to Database Systems (lDS92) Semantics of Specification Languages (SoSL) Proceedings ofthe First International Workshop Proceedings of the International Workshop on on Interfaces to Database Systems, Semantics of Specification Languages, Utrecht, Glasgow; 1-3 July 1992 The Netherlands, 25-27 October 1993 Richard Cooper (Ed.) DJ. Andrews, J.F. Groote and C.A. Middelburg (Eds.) AI and Cognitive Science '92 University of Limerick, 10-11 September 1992 Security for Object· Oriented Systems Kevin Ryan and Richard F.E. Sutcliffe (Eds.) Proceedings ofthe OOPSLA-93 Conference Workshop on Security for Object-Oriented Theory and Formal Methods 1993 Systems, Washington DC, USA, Proceedings of the First Imperial College 26 September 1993 Department of Computing Workshop on Theory B. Thuraisingham, R. Sandhu and and Formal Methods, Isle of Thoms Conference T.C. Ting (Eds.) Centre, Chelwood Gate, Sussex, UK, 29-31 March 1993 Functional Programming, Glasgow 1993 Geoffrey Bum, Simon Gay and Mark Ryan (Eds.) Proceedings of the 1993 Glasgow Workshop on Functional Programming, Ayr, Scotland, Algebraic Methodology and Software 5-7 July 1993 Technology (AMAST'93) John T. O'Donnell and Kevin Hammond (Eds.) Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Algebraic Methodology and Software Z User Workshop, Cambridge 1994 Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, Proceedings of the Eighth Z User Meeting, The Netherlands, 21-25 June 1993 Cambridge, 29-30 June 1994 M. Nivat, C. Rattray, T. Rus and G. Scollo (Eds.) J.P. Bowen and J.A. Hall (Eds.) Logic Program Synthesis and Transformation 6th Refinement Workshop Proceedings of LOPSTR 93, International Proceedings of the 6th Refinement Workshop, Workshop on Logic Program Synthesis and organised by BCS-FACS, London, Transformation, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 5-7 January 1994 7-9 July 1993 David Till (Ed.) Yves Deville (Ed.) Incompleteness and Uncertainty in Database Programming Languages (DBPL.4) Information Systems Proceedings of the Fourth International Proceedings ofthe SOFTEKS Workshop on Workshop on Database Programming Languages Incompleteness and Uncertainty in Information - Object Models and Languages, Manhattan, New Systems, Concordia University, Montreal, York City, USA, 30 August-l September 1993 Canada, 8-9 October 1993 Catriel Beeri, Atsushi Ohori and V.S. Alagar, S. Bergler and F.Q. Dong (Eds.) Dennis E. Shasha (Eds.) Rough Sets, Fuzzy Sets and Music Education: An ArtlficiallnteUigence Knowledge Discovery Approach, Proceedings of a Workshop held as Proceedings of the International Workshop on part of AI-ED 93, World Conference on Artificial Rough Sets and Knowledge Discovery Intelligence in Education, Edinburgh, Scotland, (RSKD'93), Banff, Alberta, Canada, 25 August 1993 12-15 October 1993 Matt Smith, Alan Smaill and Wojciech P. Ziarko (Ed.) Geraint A. Wiggins (Eds.) Algebra of Communicating Processes Rules in Database Systems Proceeedings of ACP94, the First Workshop on Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on the Algebra of Communicating Processes, Rules in Database Systems, Edinburgh, Scotland, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 30 August-l September 1993 16-17 May 1994 Norman W. Paton and A. Ponse, C. Verhoef and M. Howard Williams (Eds.) S.F.M. van Vlijmen (Eds.) continued on back page ... Pete Sawyer (Ed.) Interfaces to Database Systems (IDS94) Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Interfaces to Database Systems, Lancaster University, 13-15 July 1994 Published in collaboration with the British Computer Society Springer-Verlag London Ltd. Pete Sawyer, BSc, PhD Computing Department, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LAI 4YR, UK ISBN 978-3-540-19910-6 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Interfaces to Database Systems (IDS94): Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Interfaces to Database Systems, Lancaster University, 13-15 July 1994.-(Workshops in Computing Series) I. Sawyer, P.H. II. Series 005.74 ISBN 978-3-540-19910-6 ISBN 978-1-4471-3818-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-3818-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data International Workshop on Interfaces to Database Systems (2nd : 1994 : Lancaster University) Interfaces to database systems (IDS94) : proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Interfaces to Database Systems, Lancaster University, 13-15 July, 1994/ Pete Sawyer (ed.). p. cm.-(Workshops in computing) "Published in collaboration with the British Computer Society." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-540-19910-6 1. Database management-Congresses. 2. Userinterfaces (Computer systems)-Congresses. I. Sawyer, Pete (Pete H.), 1958- 11. British Computer Society. m. Title. IV. Series. QA76.9.D3158545 1994 94-38463 005.74-dc20 CIP Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transrnitted, in any form, or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. © Springer-Verlag London 1995 Originally published by Springer-Verlag London Berlin Heidelberg New York 1995 The use of registered names, trademarks etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or ornissions that may be made. Typesetting: Camera ready by contributors 34/3830-543210 Printedon acid-free paper Preface A brief survey of the major DBMS and HeI conference proceedings over the past 10 years will reveal isolated pockets of research in database user interfaces but little sense of being swept along with the general advances in DBMS technology and Hel. New data models have evolved to meet the needs of different application domains; persistent programming languages are blurring the traditional distinction between data definition and application programming languages; distribution and inter-operability have become issues as have the storage of heterogeneous media types; yet it is still rare to read of the HeI issues raised by these technological innovations being expressly addressed and rarer still to find recognition of the usability problems with longer-established database technologies. There are at least two reasons why this should be surprising: • Database systems are not like other computer systems; existing both as back-ends to other applications and as stand-alone data stores, they are typically slow, deal with very large volumes of data and can involve all sorts of security, confidentiality and even cooperability issues. • Databases are everywhere. Perhaps only word processors and spread sheets are more widespread. In addition, as business cultures change and personal computing continues to mould expectations, end-users find themselves interacting increasingly closely with database systems. Hence, databases present particular problems and challenges to the user interface designer. While there has been some very valuable work (Zloofs work on by-example querying in the 1970's [1] for example) the huge body of database users has been greatly under-represented in HeI research. However, there are signs that attitudes are changing; soundings taken at recent VLDB conferences indicate that the DBMS community is becoming sensitised to the importance of database usability [2], identifying user interface issues as one of the crucial areas for future database research. The series of workshops on user interfaces to database systems, of which this collection of papers represents the proceedings of the second, was initiated to exploit and stimulate this awakening interest. The papers cover a range of topics within the area of database user interfaces, and are by authors whose research backgrounds span both the DBMS and the HeI camps. The papers accepted for the workshop were selected for their quality and relevance to the area. We hoped to encourage vi Preface submissions on a range of topics and the papers we received admirably met this criterion. All the topics covered by the papers in this volume have an important relevance to database user interface research, but it is perhaps interesting to note two ofthe topics; 3-dimensional visualisation and evaluation methods. The visualisation papers demonstrate that one of HCI's hottest topics has found a real, and really useful, application in databases. The evaluation papers show that database user interface researchers are aware of the pitfalls of concentrating on technology in the search for solutions while ignoring the need to evaluate users' needs and experiences. The presence of papers on these topics demonstrates that within database user interface research there is both a willingness to innovate technologically, and a mature determination to learn from the mistakes of other areas of HCI. The short paper by Haber will make interesting reading for researchers as it reports a first attempt to add flesh to the general observation that database user interfaces need more research. The workshop delegates were asked to identify what we saw as the crucial areas within the general area. The survey represents a relatively small sample of opinions but it will be interesting to see how closely our current perceptions match future developments. Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the many people who have helped with the workshop and the proceedings: the programme committee and their reviewing teams for performing an admirable and extremely efficient job; the authors who provided such high-quality submissions, mostly to time and in format; Jacqui Forsyth for performing nearly all of the actual organisation and management of the workshop; Simon Monk for doing my job while I was away over a critical period; Kath Teasdale and the staff at Charlotte Mason College for their help and for providing such an excellent venue. I am particularly grateful to Richard Cooper, who as inaugurator of the series provided advice and ideas on many aspects of the workshop's content and organisation. Pete Sawyer August 1994 References [1] Zloof, M.M. Query-by-Example: A database language. IBM Syst. J., vol 16, no 4, 1982, pp 324-343 [2] Stonebraker, M. et. al. DBMS Research at a Crossroads: The Vienna Update, Proc. 19th VLDB Conference, Dublin, 1993, pp 688-692 IDS94 Programme Committee Pete Sawyer (Chair) Lancaster University, UK Hans Dieter Boecker GMD, Darmstadt, Germany Richard Cooper Glasgow University, UK Maria Costabile University of Bari, Italy Alan Dix University of York, UK David England Glasgow Unviersity, UK Alistair Kilgour Heriot-Watt University, UK Roger King University of Colarado, USA Norman Paton Heriot-Watt University, UK Reviewers Hans-Dieter Boecker Jack Campin Berardina de Carolis Richard Cooper Maria Costabile Alan Dix Geoff Ellis David England Alvaro Fernandes Alistair Kilgour Roger King John Mariani Simon Monk Norman Paton Sebastiano Pizzutilo Pete Sawyer Contents Invited Paper Configuring Database Query Languages R. Cooper................................................................................................ 3 Naive and Application-Specific User Intedaces GUIDANCE: Making it Easy for the User to be an Expert D. Haw, C. Goble and A. Rector ........................................................ 25 HIBROWSE for Hotels: Bridging the Gap Between User and System Views of a Database G.P. Ellis, J.E. Finlay and A.S. Pollitt ............................................... 49 Formal Approaches A Visual Approach to Multilinear Recursion T. Catarci and G. Santucci ................................................................. 65 Database Querying by Hypergraph Manipulation T. Catarci and L. Tarantino ................................................................ 84 SFQI: Semi-Formal Query Language Interface to Relational Databases M.N. MdSap and D.R. McGregor ..................................................... 104 3-Dimensional Visualization and Virtual Reality Design of a 3D User Interface to a Database J. Boyle, J.E. Fothergill and P.M.D. Gray...................................... 127 Three Dimensional Interface for an Object Oriented Database M.H. Rapley and J.B. Kennedy ......................................................... 143 Virtual Environments for Data Sharing and Visualisation - Populated Information Terrains S. Benford and J. Mariani ................................................................. 168 Data Model Issues I A Graphical User Interface for Schema Evolution in an Object Oriented Database s. Monk............................................................................................... 185 x Contents Unifying Interaction with Persistent Data and Program R.e.H. Connor, Q.l. Cutts, G.N.e. Kirby, V.S. Moore and R. Morrison ........................................................................................ 197 Metaphors Bags and Viewers: A Metaphor for Intelligent Database Access R. lnder and J. Stader ....................................................................... 215 Query by Browsing A. Dix and A. Patrick ...... ................ .......... ......... ............. ..... ...... ....... 236 A Dynamic Form-Based Data Visualiser for Semantic Query Languages G. Santucci and F. Palmisano .. .............. ........ ........ ........... ....... ... ..... 249 Domain Restrictive User Interfaces Using Databases P. Messer and N. Patel...................................................................... 266 Data Model Issues II A Graphical User Interface for a Cooperative Design Database M. Machura........................................................................................ 289 Interfaces to Data Models: Taking a Step Backwards P. Barclay, A. Crerar and K. Davidson ........................................... 306 Evaluation and Experimentation Intuitive Human Interfaces for an Audio-Database B. Eaglestone and R. Vertegaal........................................................ 329 Techniques for the Effective Evaluation of Database Interfaces N. W. Paton, G. al-Qaimari, K. Doan and A. e. Kilgour ....... .......... 343 Future Directions The Ambleside Survey: Important Topics in DB//HCI Research E.M. Haber......................................................................................... 361 Author Index .................................................................................... 365
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