The paper by Jock Mackinlay from Stanford University aims to develop an application-independent presentation tool that automatically designs effective graphical presentations of relational information. The primary goals are to codify graphic design criteria and generate a wide variety of designs to accommodate diverse information. The approach is based on treating graphical presentations as sentences of graphical languages, with expressiveness and effectiveness criteria defining the design issues. Expressiveness criteria ensure the language can express the desired information, while effectiveness criteria ensure the language exploits the capabilities of the output medium and human visual system. A composition algebra, using primitive graphical languages and composition operators, systematically generates a wide range of designs. Artificial intelligence techniques are used to implement a prototype tool called APT, which can synthesize various useful designs. The paper discusses related work, the graphical presentation problem, and details the expressiveness and effectiveness criteria, as well as the composition algebra.The paper by Jock Mackinlay from Stanford University aims to develop an application-independent presentation tool that automatically designs effective graphical presentations of relational information. The primary goals are to codify graphic design criteria and generate a wide variety of designs to accommodate diverse information. The approach is based on treating graphical presentations as sentences of graphical languages, with expressiveness and effectiveness criteria defining the design issues. Expressiveness criteria ensure the language can express the desired information, while effectiveness criteria ensure the language exploits the capabilities of the output medium and human visual system. A composition algebra, using primitive graphical languages and composition operators, systematically generates a wide range of designs. Artificial intelligence techniques are used to implement a prototype tool called APT, which can synthesize various useful designs. The paper discusses related work, the graphical presentation problem, and details the expressiveness and effectiveness criteria, as well as the composition algebra.