Interaction design for scholarly writing: Hypertext representations as a means for creative knowledge work

Abstract

This paper presents our approach of using hypertext representations to support a scholar in the early stages of a scholarly writing process. We take D. A. Schoen's model of design as a theoretical framework. Schoen views design as a reflective conversation with the materials of a situation, where the designer interacts with the materials, such as pen and sketch on a sheet of paper, in the reflection-in-action process. The designer acts and reflects almost simultaneously; acting on external representations, interpreting emerging representations, and reacting to them. We argue that a scholar needs to engage in two different types of representations in the reflection-in-action process: external representations for thinking about the problem, and representations for expressing a solution in a publishable form. The former does not necessarily precede the latter; rather, the two representations coevolve through the reflection-in-action process. Our approach uses hypertext representations as a means to interact with in the early stages of scholarly writing both for thinking about the problem and for expressing a solution. Hypertext representations have long been studied in their relation to supporting human intellectual work; our approach, however, is unique in providing the two representations with a specific concern for supporting reflection-in-action by applying the concept called ART (Amplifying Representational Talkback) as an interaction design principle. Based on this framework, we have developed ART014, a tool for scholarly writing. ART014 simultaneously supports two types of hypertext representations: a column-based network hypertext representation and a spatial hypertext representation. The two representations are located side by side, and integrated when an interaction with one representation is reflected in the visual presentation of the other. Although a user operates on the same set of objects through the two representations, the user expresses relationships among the objects independently in the two representations. We present a scenario to illustrate in detail how the design concepts underpinning ART014 supports scholarly writing. This paper then discusses our approach from three viewpoints by using the scenario: use of the two representations, engagement in reflection-in-action, and modes of authoring. The paper concludes with a description of future directions.

The authors would like to thank Atsushi Aoki, Ryoichi Matsuda, Mitsunori Asada, Yoshiyuki Nishinaka, and Tomohiro Oda for their support in conducting this research. The authors are grateful to the editor of the special issue and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and constructive suggestions to improve the paper. This research is partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), 16200008, 2004–2007, and 15200011, 2003–2006.

Notes

The writing material we use in the scenario was collected from one of our previous paper writing projects, which did not use any computational media in its early phases. The project identified key concepts/mechanisms from five previously written documents and put each of them on a post-it like card. The members of the project then spatially arranged the cards on a table in collaboration while exploring the theme of the paper.