Construction Kits and Design Environments: Steps Toward Human Problem-Domain Communication

Our goal is to build cooperative computer systems to augment human intelligence. In these systems, the communication between the user and the computer plays a crucial role. To provide the user with the appropriate level of control and a better understanding, we have to replace human-computer communication with human problem-domain communication, which allows users to concentrate on the problems of their domain and to ignore the fact that they are using a computer tool. Construction kits and design environments are tools that represent steps toward human problem-domain communication. A construction kit is a set of building blocks that models a problem domain. The building blocks define a design space (the set of all possible designs that can be created by combining these blocks). Design environments go beyond construction kits in that they bring to bear general knowledge about design (e.g., which meaningful artifacts can be constructed, how and which blocks can be combined with each other) that is useful for the designer. Prototypical examples of these systems (especially in the area of user interface design) are described in detail, and the feasibility of this approach is evaluated.