Automatically-Generated Form Screens as a Database Interface Language (Human Factors, Information Systems).

A new database interface language called Metaform has been developed which automatically generates multirelational form screen interfaces for use by non-computer professionals. This system operates on an Entity-Relationship database embedded within the relational model. A form screen is a hierarchical subschema of the database, with a particular entity type at the apex of the hierarchy. Automatically generated form screens allow updatable, comprehensible views of the database to be quickly and inexpensively presented to the user. This system--when given an entity type--will produce a corresponding form schema. Such a form schema displayed as a form screen on a CRT provides a user with a view of the database focused on a single entity type but which may involve multiple relations. A user can simultaneously query and update several relations in the database without having to know about its actual schema. The syntax and semantics of the form update operators are presented. These operators are defined so that the form-view of an Entity Relationship database--which may involve several relations--may be updated even though the user is not aware of the actual underlying database structure. Conventional multi-relational views formed using the relational calculus or algebra may be queried, but cannot be updated without anomalies. A human factors experiment is presented to illustrate the user interface potential of a version of the Metaform query language. This experiment gathered information on study times, query writing, and query comprehension for beginning-computer users interacting with the tested language. These results are presented along with an analysis of user errors. Language modifications based on these results are then discussed.PhDComputer scienceUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160476/1/8512358.pd