GarryJolleyRogers - Wed Nov 25 2009 - Version 1.7
Parent topic: StoredIdentificationKeys

StoredKeyStatementVsQuestion

It seems that if A, B, and C are Statements on the children of a node, it is always logically correct to make the Question on the parent be "Does one of A, B, or C describe the object?". So the point is to provide the author with a more rational question than this? -- Main.BobMorris - 17 Nov 2003

This was my idea, I think. In Lucid Phoenix, we found that it's nice to be able to offer people both the conventional statement type of key, and a (perhaps) more user-friendly question-answer style. A conventional statement key is the one we're all familiar with as taxonomists, e.g.

1  Leaves ovate........2
1a Leaves elliptic.....3

2  Flowers blue.......etc
2a Flowers red........etc

These keys are maximally efficient for printing on paper, but of course we're way past Gutenberg here.

A question-answer style key is very nice I think for computer representations for naive users, e.g.

1. What shape are the leaves?
    a) ovate............goto 2
    b) elliptic.........goto 3

2. What colour are the flowers?
    ...etc

These are particularly good when the "leads" e.g. ovate and elliptic are images. That's why it's nice to have both question text and lead text (or images).

-- Main.KevinThiele - 18 Nov 2003

I agree. SDD allows to add specific image resources intended as icon (Representation/MediaObject role"iconic") or "selector images" (Representation/MediaObject role"diagnostic"). Icons can supplement text, selectors can replace text (= Representation/Label). Question/Label is of this label type, similar to character and state labels. SDD thus supports:

(no question)   text statement (with optional icon)   text statement (with optional icon)


(no question)   Selector image
   Selector image

Question text   Selector image   Selector image

Question text   text statement (with optional icon)   text statement (with optional icon) 

Gregor Hagedorn - 15 Dec 2003

(Updated for SDD 1.1)