Developing Concept-Based User Interface using Icons for Reporting Observations

In recent years, we have developed a visual communication interface for reporting observations in which messages can be constructed using a spatial arrangement of icons. Each icon on the interface represents a concept or idea. This paper reports about research on a visual language interface, which allows users to create structured messages of icon strings simultaneously in a two-dimensional parallel and spatial configuration. The developed system provides drawing tools and predefined sets of icons that support a free and natural way to sketch and describe crisis situations. A coherent and context dependent interpretation of the icon configuration can be constructed by the employment of ontology. In addition, the interface is also able to convert the interpretation into crisis scenarios as feedback to the user on his/her input.