Cognitive dimensions Flashcards
What is viscosity?
Resistance to change.
Repetition viscosity: Actions of the same type.
Knock-on viscosity: Actions required as a result of the action.
What is visibility?
Ability to view components easily
What is premature commitment?
Constraints to the order of doing things.
IE: Having to choose your cutlery before choosing your food.
What are Hidden dependencies?
Important links between entities are not visible.
IE Class hierarchies.
What is Role expressiveness?
The purpose of an entity is readily inferred/
What is error-proneness?
Notation invites mistakes and the system gives little protection.
Prevention can redeem the problem
What is abstraction?
Types and availability of abstraction mechanisms
What is Secondary notation?
Enable the recording of information unanticipated by the notation designer (IE comments)
What is Closeness of mapping?
Closeness of representation to domain
What is consistency?
Similar semantics are expressed in similar systematic forms.
What is Diffuseness?
Verbosity of language, some notations are longwinded.
What is hard mental operations?
High demand on cognitive resources.
What is Provisionality?
Degree of commitment to actions or marks
AKA allow users to make a rough sketch
What is progressive evaluation?
Work-to-date can be checked at any time.
What are cognitive dimensions?
Set of discussion tools to evaluate the structural properties of a design.