From jpierce@cs.cmu.edu Tue May 5 12:01:52 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 MAA13508 for ; Tue, 5 May 1998 12:01:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (0cnhOLbv7mLPitM/na5RRmcvnpByBpgH@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id MAA18031 for ; Tue, 5 May 1998 12:01:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu (UX2.SP.CS.CMU.EDU [128.2.198.102]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA19407 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Tue, 5 May 1998 09:01:04 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199805051601.JAA19407@wheaten.hitl.washington.edu> Received: from ASYNC8-CS1.NET.CS.CMU.EDU by ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu id aa28642; 5 May 98 12:00 EDT X-Sender: jpierce@ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0 Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 11:59:03 -0400 To: 3D UI List <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu> From: Jeff Pierce Subject: Taxonomies In-Reply-To: <199805041731.NAA15467@lennon.cc.gatech.edu> References: <4FD6422BE942D111908D00805F3158DF05B2665D@red-msg-52.dns.microsoft.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO 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/ >