Applying a theory of graphical presentation to the graphic design of user interfaces

Abstract

The increasing availability of computers with highquality graphics and fonts has created an opportunity and an obligation for user interface designers. The opportunity is that designers can use graphical techniques to design more effective user interfaces. The obligation is that they must become experts at the design of graphical user interfaces. Current user interface toolkits provide very little design assistance. This paper describes a theory that supports automatic design of graphical presentations of relational information and shows how to extend it to support theory-driven design of graphical user interfaces. "A picture worth a thousand words must first be a good picture" [Bow681].