A taxonomy of user interface terminology

Abstract

User interface design and analysis is an inherently interdisciplinary activity that merges cognitive, computing, and engineering sciences. Due to the rapid pace of technological change, there is as yet no science of human-computer interaction and little consensus on what the core knowledge of the discipline should be. In other sciences, the development of taxonomies, such as the taxonomy of living organisms in biology, has proved to be a useful foundation for scientific activity. This paper proposes a taxonomy of user interface terminology as a possible basis for the eventual development of human-computer interaction as a science. This taxonomy includes a model of the basic components of the interface and coverage of some of the major cognitive engineering principles that form the basis for human-computer interaction.