Understanding algorithms through shared metaphors
Teresa Hübscher Younger · 2000
User interface designers often face the problem of generating the appropriate metaphor to explain and facilitate unfamiliar, abstract processes. Determining what are the characteristics of metaphors that promote understanding abstract processes is difficult. My doctoral research studies this question by exploring what metaphors undergraduate-students use in understanding abstract processes, specifically computer algorithms, and what are the characteristics of those metaphors.I am also studying how these metaphors are used in a collaborative learning situation using a collaboration tool I am building. This tool helps students learn collaboratively through communicating their understanding with self-generated representations. This system will capture what metaphors the students are using, their communication concerning these metaphors and their ratings of each other's metaphors.