ABSTRACT
The volume of information (e.g., standards, style guides, design guides) available to designers in the field of user interface design is increasing rapidly, especially in the area of designing graphical user interfaces (GUIs). In close relation with this circumstance is the fact, that today designers need more and more competence, knowledge, and experience to handle this great amount of information. For many designers this means that the execution of their jobs requires taking into account far more information than they can possible keep in mind or they can possibly apply. Computers seem a good chance to store this large amount of information and to support the designers applying them, because the computer is their primary tool doing their daily work. However, the problem is how to capture and encode information relevant to their tasks and how to present it to them in formats that support their mode of work. The result is a need for systems with domain competence based on domain knowledge (e.g., standards, style guides, design guides), which may be encountered, learned, practised, and extended during ongoing use-in other words, systems in which users learn on demand (Eisenberg and Fischer 1993). An innovative form of technological environments in the learning on demand area are enabling systems. They are characterised through a new form of cooperation between the user and the computer. This means the computer and the people
using it are partners in the task-at-hand, bringing complementary strengths and weaknesses to the job (Fischer et al. 1991a).
