A graphical, database-querying interface for casual, naive computer users

doi:10.1016/0020-7373(91)90049-D

International Journal of Man-Machine Studies

Volume 34, Issue 1, January 1991, Pages 23-47

https://doi.org/10.1016/0020-7373(91)90049-D Get rights and content

Abstract

The main thrust of this work is to present to the naive user, information on the database with which he is interacting, which will enable him to produce quickly and easily, meaningful database queries. This information is presented as a multi-level picture, and the testing performed concentrates on the presentation aspects of the picture.

The characteristics of a specific group of casual, naive database users, namely doctors, were employed in the derivation of requirements for the database interface. A graphical interface, with natural language query processing, is presented as satisfying these requirements. The interface provides a picture of the logical database structure; the user can also interact with the picture in order to ascertain the types of data held by the database. An initial test was conducted with the primary purpose of validating the acceptability of the interface by the doctors. As intimated, follow-on testing considered variations to the basic picture, using both tree and network structures with differing levels of heading interrelationship information, to discover user preferences among some of the available options. These latter tests were performed with a group of doctors and a group of teachers.

The results indicate that the test subjects were comfortable with the interface and it enabled them to produce database queries quickly, easily and efficiently. There was no statistically significant differences in the speed of entry or correctness of queries over the different picture variations. For the doctors, there were statistically significant results for the subjective preference of one particular picture variant among those considered; for the teachers there were indications of concurrence with the doctors' preference but not at a level that was statistically significant. There was a statistically significant rejection by the test population of pictures closely following the form of an entity-relationship diagram.

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A graphical, database-querying interface for casual, naive computer users

Abstract

International Journal of Man-Machine Studies

International Journal of Man-Machine Studies

International Journal of Man-Machine Studies

Features of languages for the development of information systems at the conceptual level

IEEE Software

Breaking of the man-machine communications barrier

Computer

An interface for novice and infrequent database management system users

Different problem-solving competencies established in learning computer programming with and without meaningful models

Journal of Educational Psychology

The psychology of how novices learn computer programming

ACM Computing Surveys