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Hi Folks,
Recently I read this:
"One of the most important axioms in the discipline of Information
Architecture states that designers are the ones who uncover patterns
inherent in data, and expose them in an interface." [1]
I was particularly struck by these words: "uncover patterns inherent in
data".
I got to thinking,
- How does one uncover patterns in data?
- Does data have inherent patterns?
- What is a data pattern?
I looked at regular expressions, e.g.
[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*
This regular expression specifies a "pattern"; namely zero or more
letters of the alphabet followed by zero or more digits.
This is a low-level pattern, at the character level.
What are patterns at the document level?
When I create an XML instance document I am (implicitly) stating,
- Here is a data pattern I think is useful.
Do you agree?
For example, I discovered a pattern in BookStores: they are comprised
of multiple Books. And I discovered a pattern in Books: they are
comprised of a Title, an Author, a Date of publication, an ISBN, and a
Publisher. I can expose these patterns like this:
<BookStore>
<Book>
<Title>The Art & Science of Web Design</Title>
<Author>Jeffrey Veen</Author>
<Date>2001</Date>
<ISBN>0-7897-2379-0</ISBN>
<Publisher>New Riders</Publisher>
</Book>
...
</BookStore>
QUESTIONS
1. Are data patterns discovered, or, are data patterns created?
2. Are data patterns descriptive, or, are data patterns prescriptive?
3. What's the difference between a "master" data designer versus a
"novice" data designer?
4. Does this characterize the difference: a master data designer
discovers patterns intrinsic in data whereas a novice data designer
engineers a pattern?
5. Are there steps that a person can take to transition from a novice
data designer to a master data designer?
/Roger
[1] The Art & Science of Web Design by Jeffrey Veen
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