Using the expert's diagrams as a specification of expertise

Abstract

The authors present two techniques for graphically encoding information in a restricted type of diagram called a relational diagram, to show how diagramming conventions can be formalized in a visual language. They describe BOS, a diagramming tool that allows the user to build a customized set of diagramming conventions suited to their problem domain. Diagrams drawn with BOS generate formal specifications that reduce the need to establish the diagrams' meanings by accompanying text or verbal explanation. BOS is currently able to generate frames and rules from an interesting set of relational diagrams that allow the use of spatial arrangement and connectivity to represent information about problem-domain entities, part-of relations, constraints, temporal ordering, and procedural steps.<>