🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Apr3.031013.27762@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Sneaky Sanj ;-) writes:
>In article <10292@pitt.UUCP> grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette)
writes:
>>
>>I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I
>>would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me,
>>that is,  that people can scan information presented
>>in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain
>>textual form.
>
>Yes, this makes sense. I can process an image IN PARALLEL. I can see a
>picture of a horse and immediately I know it is a horse.

Yes, and that's very nice. But what does the picture _mean_? (this last by
Peter Cash at <cash@convex.com>)

Along with the other recommendations for reading already suggested, you may
want to look at some works on semiotics, as suggested by your librarian.  Not
all users will come to your work with similar cultural backgrounds, and even
those from a "white, anglo Christian" background will not have as much in
common today as they would have had even 20 years ago.  With the loss of some
long-held common threads in our cultures (for Christian based folk, this would
be the decline of familiarity with the King James Bible and its oft quoted
Psalms, gospels etc) we face a user-public who either do not understand some of
our visula references adequately, or who understand them in a context far
removed from their source, possibly as used in a comic book rather than a
Shakespeare play.

Note that this applies to text as much as to pictures. (Multi-media to me still
arouses a vision of 20 slide projectors in racks with dissolve controls and
8-track tape decks - I have to work to see a computer, with CD-ROM, LaserDisk
and associated displays.)

Good luck with your efforts - I think you may have found a life-time of work.
:-)
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