AERIAL: Ad hoc entity-relationship investigation and learning

A discussion is presented of browsing, an alternate style of working with databases, that facilitates the unplanned exploration of the structure and contents of a database by a novice user. The authors argue that browsing facilitates learning and helps bring the user´s mental model of the problem space into correspondence with the model stored in the database. Browsing is illustrated through a learning scenario using AERIAL, a facility that allows the user to browse an entity-relationship database. The facilities provided by AERIAL are discussed in detail as is their use in building a correspondence between the user´s model of the problem space and the model stored in the database