THE TAXONOMY WORKBENCH A multimedia database system for analysing representational modalities

Work started by addressing the first part of the research agenda of modality theory, i.e. the development of a taxonomy of output modalities in the media of graphics, sound and touch. A (representational) modality is a way of representing information. It was realised from early on that work might benefit from the support of a software tool in which we could represent large numbers of samples of output representations for the purposes of analysing their properties and testing possible taxonomy schemes. This lead to the development of Version 1 of the taxonomy workbench (May and Bernsen 1993, May and Tobin 1993), which was demonstrated at INTERCHI '93 in Amsterdam. Version 1 is a database tool designed to assist research by (a) setting up a common multimedia/multimodal database of example output representations, (b) assisting the description and classification of these examples according to different assumptions about the modalities involved, and (c) enabling thought experiments such as, e.g., the testing of different hypotheses about features of the modalities and their interrelations.