Affiliations: Department of Informatics & Institute of Computational Linguistics, University of Zurich, Switzerland | Department of Intelligent Computer Systems, University of Malta, Msida, Malta. E-mail: kuhntobias@gmail.com. Url: http://www.tkuhn.ch
Note: [] This work was funded by the research grant (Forschungskredit) programs 2006 and 2008 of the University of Zurich. I would like to thank Alain Cohn, Norbert E. Fuchs, Kaarel Kaljurand, Marc Lutz, Cerstin Mahlow, Philipp Müller and Michael Piotrowski for their suggestions and corrections. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics of the University of Zurich for organizing the recruitment of the participants for the experiment.
Abstract: Different kinds of controlled natural language (CNL) have been proposed as a front-end for Semantic Web systems, in order to make them more accessible to users with no background in formal notations and methods. This paper investigates whether OWL statements in CNL are indeed easier to understand than in other notations. To this aim, an experiment with 64 participants was conducted that compares a controlled natural language to a classical OWL notation. Concretely, Attempto Controlled English was compared to a simplified version of the Manchester OWL Syntax. For a reliable and tool-independent evaluation of understandability, the experiment is based on a novel evaluation framework making use of simple and intuitive diagrams. The results show that CNL is easier to understand, needs less learning time, and is more accepted by its users.
Keywords: Understandability, user experiment, controlled natural language, Attempto Controlled English (ACE), Web Ontology Language (OWL)
DOI: 10.3233/SW-2012-0063
Journal: Semantic Web, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 101-115, 2013
