The same form of lighting will not be effective in all areas of a school facility. Factors to be considered include physical and psychological effects, visual requirements, and cost. A chart illustrates type of lamp, output/energy ratio, light "quality," and applications. (MLF)

Provides overview of design requirements for transparent information retrieval (implies that user sees through complexity of retrieval activities sequence). Highlights include need for transparent systems; history of transparent retrieval research; information retrieval functions (automated converters, routers, selectors, evaluators/analyzers);…

Reviews the effectiveness of animation in enhancing textual information for instructional purposes and identifies factors that determine effectiveness. Outlines methodological problems in the research and summarizes design criteria for multimedia instructional products. Contains 78 references. (PEN)

Discusses basic principles of human-computer interface design that will be helpful to librarians involved in designing effective OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) screens. Highlights include physical features; general principles; menu screens; commands; inquiry screens; messages, including help screens; and organizational considerations,…

Discussion of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) focuses on what is required to evaluate the efficacy of an ITS. Research and development aspects of ITS are examined; and seven main principles that may be used to design, plan, and implement an effective ITS evaluation are described. (Contains 40 references.) (LRW)

This article describes the stages in developing a special education expert system: orientation, development of a theoretical framework, generation of content for the system databases, and checks for consistency and logic/revision. It explains the synthesis and application required to build the content for the system and discusses typical problems…

One of the situations in which the child spends much time is informal, outdoor play settings. Much of this time is spent in spontaneous play in neighborhoods, around the dwelling unit, and on designated playgrounds. Unstructured and spontaneous play is an important part of a child's development. It is through unstructured, child-initiated play…

Available technical literature pertaining to exit facility design and emergency escape provisions of the National Fire Protection Association's "Life Safety Code" (1976 Edition) are reviewed in order to determine the technical support for such provisions. The report focuses on the time-based capabilities of building occupants to effect…

This investigation of the encoding features of graphs begins with a description of a cognitive framework which allows designers to factor into the process of designing displays how people interpret the information found and what display properties are responsible for this interpretation. The framework also provides a performance measure for use in…

This paper deals with the primary processes of cognition in fifth- and sixth-grade children; i.e., how children this age interpret what they see and hear, how they remember it, and how they reason and solve problems. Designed to provide background information for the staff of the Skills Essential to Learning Television Project (a multi-level…

Recent research on human factors in the man-machine communications interface is reviewed and discussed as it relates to the problem of establishing optimal system response times for the various kinds of tasks performed at the computer terminal. Optimal system response time is operationally defined, and the conflicting demands of system design,…

Discusses the special information needs of the building industry, attributes of existing expert systems that support building design and construction, and current research to further develop the application of expert systems to this area. An annotated listing of related expert system developments is appended. (49 references) (CLB)

Examines the status of postoccupancy evaluation, which is the study of the effectiveness of designed environments for their human users. Issues addressed include generality, breadth of focus, applicability, sponsorship, methodology, and future directions. (WB)

Five Grand Challenges are proposed for library research: (1) Library service: Could library services be made more meaningful? (2) Library theory: Who knew what when? (3) Library design: Have digital libraries been designed backwards? (4) Library values: How neutral can libraries be? (5) Library communities: How do communities differ? (AEF)

Discussion of online catalogs focuses on issues in interface design. Issues addressed include understanding the user base; common user access (CUA) with personal computers; common command language (CCL); hyperlinks; screen design issues; differences from card catalogs; indexes; graphic user interfaces (GUIs); color; online help; and remote users.…