From mconway@microsoft.com Tue May 5 13:33:00 1998 Received: from burdell.cc.gatech.edu (root@burdell.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.3.207]) by lennon.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id NAA19726 for ; Tue, 5 May 1998 13:32:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (U7pssF7CdspYoudlPxKlG5NMaRE5Uxww@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id NAA28883 for ; Tue, 5 May 1998 13:32:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mail1-b.microsoft.com (mail1-b.microsoft.com [131.107.3.125]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA18913 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Tue, 5 May 1998 10:32:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: by INET-IMC-01 with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2166.0) id ; Tue, 5 May 1998 10:31:35 -0700 Message-ID: <4FD6422BE942D111908D00805F3158DF05B26678@red-msg-52.dns.microsoft.com> From: Matt Conway To: 3D UI List <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu> Subject: RE: Taxonomies Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 10:31:30 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2166.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Status: RO I'm still penning a response to Doug's insightful responses to my mail... but allow me to chime in here: I agree with Jeff. A taxonomy is just a way of thinking about characteristics of a large heterogeneous space. I can give you a taxonomy of animals by Genus, Species, Kingdom, etc, or I could give it to you in terms of size, or nocturnal/diurnal, etc...it all depends on what you hope to gain by performing the taxonomy. "coverage" at the top level of the taxonomy is clearly an important quality to have, but coverage of WHAT is the important thing that will distinguish one taxonomy from another. Doug's taxonomy seems to do a good job of separating out the motor aspects of virtual navigation. Matt > -----Original Message----- > From: Jeff Pierce [mailto:jpierce@cs.cmu.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 8:59 AM > To: 3D UI List > Subject: Taxonomies > > > I don't think there's any such thing as the "correct" or > "best" taxonomy: > taxonomies are tools to think with, so any taxonomy that > helps you think > about your work in a new light is a good taxonomy. However, > taxonomies may > be more or less useful at any given point in time. > Which makes it sticky to evaluate them: taxonomy A might claim to have > better coverage of existing techniques than taxonomy B, but > if taxonomy B > makes me think about my task in a new way and in a stroke of insight I > create a new technique, then taxonomy B is the "better" > taxonomy in this > case. In the following week, when I'm trying to figure out > which parts of > the design space haven't attacked yet, taxonomy A might be > the "better" > taxonomy for me. So maybe rather than the one, true, all > powerful taxonomy > what we need are 3-4 different taxonomies that we can apply at need to > think about our task from different angles. > > Jeff > > At 01:31 PM 5/4/98 -0400, Doug Bowman wrote: > >I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about this. Is there a "right" > >way to taxonomize? :) How do we evaluate taxonomies? Some > >possibilities: they cover all known techniques, they are useful > >for generating new design ideas, they provide a meaningful way > >to think about differences between techniques, or most people > >familiar with techniques would fit them into the taxonomy the same > >way. What is the purpose of a taxonomy? If someone comes up > >with a better taxonomy, are the results that we get nullified? > >I realize this is very abstract (abstractions about abstractions), > >but what do people think on these issues? > > > >Doug > >-- > >Doug Bowman, Ph.D. Candidate > >College of Computing, GVU Center, Georgia Tech > >Room 388 CRB, (404) 894-5104 > >bowman@cc.gatech.edu > >http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Phd/Doug.Bowman/ > > >