This workshop was concerned with the fact that current computer application systems are best at dealing with welldefined materials rather than in helping users create new concepts. For example, it is easier to use computers to draft precise drawings than to quickly sketch new configurations; it is easier to craft polished documents than to jot ideas and play with them. A body of research is beginning to accumulate that explores systems, such as pen-based sketching applications, to support the user in dealing with ill-defined concepts and materials. The key point of concern is that a person needs be able to easily create a visual representation, even for abstract and verbal ideas, and then respond to it perceptually and to interact with it in order to discover new arrangements and shapes suggesting new ideas. Thus, new concepts emerge from the concrete materials of the representation.

The research question of the workshop was how interactive systems can aid users in quickly creating and manipulating representations and whether they can support the discovery of new relationships, structures, and meanings in the materials. This is clearly an important new direction for the development of computer system design.