AERIAL: Ad hoc entity-relationship investigation and learning

A discussion is presented of browsing, an alternate style of working with databases, that facilitates the unplanned exploration of the structure and contents of a database by a novice user. The authors argue that browsing facilitates learning and helps bring the user's mental model of the problem space into correspondence with the model stored in the database. Browsing is illustrated through a learning scenario using AERIAL, a facility that allows the user to browse an entity-relationship database. The facilities provided by AERIAL are discussed in detail as is their use in building a correspondence between the user's model of the problem space and the model stored in the database.<<ETX>>