| User interface design practices assert that conceptual models be developed to specify the key entities, attributes, actions, and relationships which comprise a system. These practices also assert that consistency is an important factor in the ultimate usability of an interactive system. This dissertation proposes a procedure for the verification of completeness and conceptual consistency within conceptual models. The models built using this procedure describe entire systems, including people-in-the-loop, internal thought processes, etc., rather than only the objects within an application's software. A frame-based knowledge representation and a knowledge base codifying a working definition of conceptual consistency for analyzing models specified in the representation are presented.;When possible, the contents of a conceptual model should be reviewed by representatives of the user community to help validate the specification. However, for this to be practical the specification must be in the terminology of the users. The model should also be used as a basis for system development, and so should be readable by a design team and, more importantly, by a computer to allow for automated prototype generation. To meet these goals, conceptual models are created utilizing the users' language, and specifications are produced using an object-oriented format. |
