Re: Conceptual, Semantic, Syntactic and Lexical Design

Gilbert -

> As I said, old graphics people invented this, and sure 
> enough, this is Steve Feiner's course
> - Steve is a co-author on later editions of Foley and van 
> Dam's classic Computer Graphics text. So, no shock there, 
> it's what's in his book ...

Bad example then; it's the first that comes up under Google. There are
scores of other references to it in HCI and UI design courses.

> There's some confusion in your thread William.  You began by 
> saying you didn't get this conceptual stuff.  Now you're 
> saying that the stuff you don't get will be gotten by 
> software engineers because it's the only sort of stuff that 
> they will get, even if you can't.

It's not the conceptual modelling I was having trouble with. It was the
functional/semantic level (the one below conceptual).

> The above (old) Working Conference Report makes it absolutely 
> clear that they don't get it.
> 
> It's all woolly and ungrounded.  Even use cases are better.  
> Even ER-modelling is better.

I don't see use cases as an alternative to conceptual models - the two
compliment each other. I do believe, though, that if the entities that
users need to concern themselves with (from the conceptual model) are
not obvious in a UI, the UI is unlikely to be effective.

BTW, how does an ER model differ from a conceptual model (I describe my
conceptual models as ER diagrams sometimes so I really am interested!).

William

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