PRELOG - A SYSTEM FOR PRESENTING AND RENDERING LOGIC SPECIFICATIONS OF INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS

Abstract

Formal specifications provide the non-specialist with an extremely poor impression of what it would be like to interact with a computer system. Prototypes provide a far better impression of the ‘look and feel’ of possible implementations but lack the precision of more formal approaches. Unfortunately, specification and prototyping are typically treated as alternatives. If these two activities can be harnessed then the designer has a means of incorporating the user into systems design. Tools can ease the transition from specification to prototype by supporting the visualisation of a design in terms of graphical representations of the proposed system. This paper describes Prelog, a tool for Presenting and REndering LOGic specifications of interactive systems. Prelog supports the structured representation of interaction objects which describe virtual devices. Interaction objects support reasoning about prototypes because they provide a means of abstracting away from device dependent pragmatics which make renderings intractable.