Meurig Beynon, Richard Cartwright, Jaratsri Rungrattanaubol and Pi-Hwa Sun, Interactive Situation Models for Systems Development (March 1, 1999).
Devising principles for systems representation and analysis that can cope with the complexity of the interactions between programmable components and human agents in modern computing applications is a challenging and fundamental problem. Understanding the role of human and inanimate components within a reactive system, for instance, involves not only input-output transformations, but also communication and stimulus-response issues. This paper proposes novel computer-based interactive situation models to assist systems development. Such models provide an environment within which the human interpreter can explore the relationships between observables and the patterns of behaviour associated with a system component with particular reference to its external real-world semantics. They are constructed using principles based upon observation, agency and dependency ("Empirical Modelling") that have been developed at the University of Warwick. This paper describes and illustrates ! the characteristics of interactive situation models in detail, and concludes with a brief discussion of their potential significance for systems development.