Cognitive Dimensions of Information Artefacts: a tutorial

ion types and availability of abstraction mechanisms Hidden dependencies important links between entities are not visible Premature commitment constraints on the order of doing things Secondary notation extra information in means other than formal syntax Viscosity resistance to change Visibility ability to view components easily Dimensions not treated in this tutorial Closeness of mapping closeness of representation to domain Consistency similar semantics are expressed in similar syntactic forms Diffuseness verbosity of language Error-proneness notation invites mistakes Hard mental operations high demand on cognitive resources Progressive evaluation work-to-date can be checked at any time Provisionality degree of commitment to actions or marks Role-expressiveness the purpose of a component is readily inferred

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