Date of Award

12-1-1994

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Paul Bailor, PhD

Abstract

This research refined the functionality and usability of a previously developed visual interface for a domain-oriented application composition system. The refinements incorporated more sophisticated user interface design concepts1 to reduce user workload. User workload was reduced through window reordering, menu redesign, and Human Computer Interaction techniques such as; combining repetitive procedures into single commands, reusing composition information whenever possible and deriving new information from existing information. The Software Refinery environment, including its visual interface tool INTERVISTA, was used to develop techniques for visualizing and manipulating objects contained in a formal knowledge base of objects. The interface was formally validated with digital logic-circuits, digital signal processing, event-driven logic-circuits, and cruise-missile domains. A comparative analysis of the application composition process with the previous visual interface was conducted to quantify the workload reduction realized by the new interface. Level of effort was measured as the number of user interactions (mouse or keyboard) required to compose an application. On average, application composition effort was reduced 34.0% for the test cases.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GCS-ENG-94D-06

DTIC Accession Number

ADA289337

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