This paper describes a prototype system designed to meet the needs of the next generation of user interfaces. We address research questions of information complexity, multiple shared semantically-oriented views, and customizable tool environments. Our domain of interest is software systems that require interfaces for teams of people to large bodies of design artifacts. This prototype is built around the metaphor of tourists and tour guides.

The paper presents a formal structure for describing icons and their relations to objects. Icons are mappings from icon space, which deals with representational properties, to object space, which deals with computational objects. The nature of this mapping is formally described. An extension called automatic icons is proposed. The automatic-icon model subsumes currently-used static and animated icons and gives powerful and flexible new tools we call automatic icons. Some applications of automatic icons, and a tool built by the authors to help system designers create automatic icons, are described. The processes outlined in this paper are the subject of a pending patent.