The book house: visual design

The BOOK HOUSE (and its predecessor, the BOOK AUTOMAT) are computer systems aimed at supporting library users in finding fiction. They are examples of systems using a cognitive work analysis as the basis for design and evaluation - and build on studies of the information retrieval task using actual user-librarian negotiations. These studies led to the identification of a set of strategies for searching and retrieving literature as well as a mutri-kimensional framework for classifying fiction. Both of these have been necessary prerequisites for the design of the BOOK HOUSE, a flexible on-line data base retrieval system for novice users - both adults and children. The use of icons within a spatial metaphor to facilitate direct manipulation of the displayed objects on the screen forms the basis for the interface in guiding the users' navigation in the BOOK HOUSE. This report, one of three, is based on the contribution to the project from the Royal Danish Art Academy's Architect School. It describes the approach used to cope with the problems of conveying through a computer-based medium the visual information necessary to support and enhance user interaction with the system.