Understanding conceptualizations of anatomy: designing a browser for the foundational model of anatomy

The Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) ontology is a reference ontology for the domain of human anatomy. Although the FMA has been developed as a computer-parsable resource that is intended to enable computers to reason about human anatomy, it is also important to present the FMA in a manner that can be more easily understood by humans. Current interfaces for accessing the FMA do not adequately reveal the structure of the FMA to the user, nor do they support intuitive navigation through the ontology. As the first step toward designing a new interface, this paper describes an extensive inquiry into conceptualizations of both anatomy and the FMA. This user-centered process led to a design that will serve as a basis for the implementation of a web-based browser.