Stanford CS547 HCI Seminar | Winter 2026 | Creation, Evolution, and Formalization of Notations
Stanford OnlineKey Moments
Notations evolve via grounding metaphors; AI enables instant formalization but not always creation—we can co-invent with AI.
Key Insights
Notations are broad tools that encode ideas across domains (music, math, chemistry, language) and evolve through culture and practice, not just formal logic.
Notation evolution follows stages: creation/descriptive grounding, dispersion across communities with divergence, and institutionalization (standardization) with possible sanctification.
Grounding and linking metaphors drive early notation design, often borrowing from embodied experience or existing domains (e.g., chemistry from arithmetic, dance from music, signwriting from sign languages).
In practice, notations on whiteboards or in teams are dynamic, ad hoc, and co-evolve with humans and AI; formalization is not only about reducing ambiguity but about shaping what matters conceptually.
AI’s strength in instant formalization can hinder long-term notation evolution; systems that support co-invention of new abstractions with AI are a promising research direction.
Future work should explore malleable notations, user-guided extension of notation vocabularies, and design tools that surface perceptual mappings to help people ground and evolve representations with AI.
ORIGINS AND BROAD DEFINITION OF NOTATIONS
Notations are more than equations or symbols; they are broad systems that encode ideas across many domains, including music, mathematics, chemistry, diagrams, and even natural language. The talk emphasizes a generous definition, extending beyond traditional math to include era-spanning practices like clay tokens for inventory and early computational diagrams. This historical breadth matters because it shows how communities create, adapt, and share representational tools. Understanding notation as a cultural and material practice helps explain how new notations emerge in response to new tasks and technologies.
THE EVOLUTION FRAMEWORK: CREATION, DISPERSION, AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION
Notation evolution is not a simple one-way spectrum from informal to formal. The speaker proposes a square with a translation dimension (existing formal representations) and a creation dimension (new representations). Initial creation is descriptive and empirical; dispersion spreads the notation across communities, where it diverges in response to context. If sustained, it may reach institutionalization via standardization bodies or sanctification by widespread adoption. Functional stages also occur: notation may describe phenomena, enable theories, or become a metric for evaluation.
GROUNDING AND METAPHOR: HOW NOTATIONS ARISE IN PRACTICE
A central claim is that groundings and metaphors drive early notation design. Grounding metaphors link notations to embodied or familiar experiences (e.g., Morse-like microgestures grounded by hand anatomy, or string diagrams grounded in perceptual intuition). Linking metaphors borrow from related domains (chemistry from arithmetic, dance from sheet music, programming diagrams from engineering) to scaffold understanding. Over time, these mappings loosen as the domain grows, and the notation becomes more abstract, yet the initial metaphor often shapes what is considered intuitive.
NOTATION PRACTICES IN PRACTICAL HCI: WHITEBOARDS, ADAPTATION, AND GROUNDED COLLABORATION
In real work, notations are improvised on whiteboards and evolve through collaboration between humans and sometimes AI. Grounding challenges arise when partners hold different mental models, so external notations help ground shared understanding but can also mask hidden assumptions. The talk uses a human–AI grounding example (humans and AI joint diagrams of common ground) to illustrate how notation acts as a cognitive tool for exploring differences, testing hypotheses, and making collaborative reasoning tangible—even if the notation itself does not survive the project.
AI, NOTATIONS, AND THE FUTURE OF CO-INVENTION
A key tension is that AI enables instant formalization yet struggles with creating wholly new abstractions. The speaker argues for systems that support co-invention of new notations with AI, enabling flexible representations that can ground future communication. Concepts such as malleable formalisms, handwriting-like extensions in code, and interfaces that suggest perceptual mappings (shapes, colors, or gestures) could help human–AI teams craft novel notations tailored to evolving tasks and communities.
IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA
The talk outlines a research agenda focused on how to design tools that assist people in creating, evolving, and formalizing new notations with AI. This includes studying comparative histories of notations, developing interfaces that surface perceptual mappings, and exploring co-design workflows where AI contributes as a creative partner rather than a mere amplifier. Understanding when sanctification occurs—and how to support beneficial stages of evolution—will be crucial for developing notation systems that remain useful across domains and over time.
Mentioned in This Episode
●Software & Apps
●Books
●Studies Cited
●People Referenced
Common Questions
Instant formalization refers to AI systems producing formal representations from vague or informal ideas. The speaker notes this can accelerate ground-breaking work but also risks biasing users toward existing dominant notations; collaboration with humans is proposed to co-invent and ground new abstractions.
Topics
Mentioned in this video
Co-director of the Montreal HCI lab; collaborator with the speaker.
Co-author with Goldstein on early block-like diagrams; tied to ENIAC history.
One of the earliest systems for large language model evaluation discussed by the speaker.
ENIAC project programmer who lacked formal training; provides user perspective.
Author of Advanced Game Design; cited as inspiration for personal notation exploration.
Co-developer of the cognitive dimensions framework; involved with Petra and others.
Co-developer of the cognitive dimensions framework.
Workshop/venue referenced for notations evolution; tied to a prior paper.
Invented an early dance notation that influenced later systems.
Early advocate of direct mathematical notation input into machines (Fortran-era ideas).
Co-developer of the cognitive dimensions framework.
Upcoming paper on how notations evolve.
Introduced the modern molecular formulas; origin of the linking metaphor in chemistry.
One of the early contributors who introduced flow diagrams; connected to ENIAC work.
Paper on the earliest history of computer programming.
Inventor of signwriting; collaborated with deaf communities over decades.
IBM engineer involved in early notation problems (moon problem) for direct input of equations.
Book by Michael Sers cited as an inspiration piece for notation diagrams.
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