Enhancing graphical information system models with VRML

Current CASE tools lack efficient techniques to visualise information system (IS) design repository. One important aspect in visualising graphical IS models is to preserve structure, which can have semantic value. Another key issue is to provide both focus and context in order to understand how detailed information relates to other design elements. The third aspect to consider is to trace between diagrams and other design documents. Our VRML implementation integrates different types of diagrams as a whole. We applied elision technique for decomposition of data flow diagrams (DFD) and added visible lines to link parts of DFD to entity-relation diagrams. In our laboratory experiment, we collected users' subjective opinions and performance in information search tasks. Based on the promising results, we give suggestions for further exploration.