Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Syntactic Knowledge and Visual Knowledge I've posted materials from Juan Dursteler's InfoVis previously. I very much appreciate his insights about cognitive maps, graphical displays, and the importance of graphical knowldege. "The traditional way of interacting with a computer needed what Ben Shneiderman calls 'syntactic' knowledge. The graphical user interface has substituted syntactic for visual knowledge. Each one has its own advantages and drawbacks." This short piece effectively contrasts the advantages and disadvantages of both styles of knowledge representation. I believe it is highly important to acquaint distance education instructors with these concepts. JH 9:22:28 AM    COMMENT []