User Interface Paradigms for Multi-View Modeling

The multi-view modeling paradigm has been successfully developed and is used extensively in all kinds of modeling environments. A major advantage of the multi-view approach is that it simplifies modeling activities by reducing the complexity of the model in any particular view. On the other hand, the multi-view paradigm introduces an extra dimension of complexity - that of the view . It is our experience that if the multi-view concepts are not conveyed well by the user interface of a modeling environment, then the benefits of the multi-view approach cannot be fully realized. In this short paper we survey different approaches to supporting views in modeling tools. We use this survey to identify potential problem areas where careful attention should be paid to user interface design