Vithanco IBIS - An Editor for the IBIS Notation

What is the IBIS Notation?

Use visuals to help you thinking. Vithanco IBIS is an editor for diagrams that use the IBIS Notation.

The Issue-Based Information System (IBIS) Notation was invented by Werner Kunz and Horst Rittel as an argumentation-based approach to support analysis of so-called "wicked" problems. However, IBIS Notation can be used for all problems, whether wicked or not.

This app creates and changes IBIS diagrams in order to map out a dialogue/argumentation or a thought/analysis. It uses a simple structure to help you getting to the bottom of your problems.

The IBIS Notation is a simple graphical presentation of questions and answers with their respective advantages and disadvantages with the following rules:

• A question can have any number of answers or ideas.
• Any answer/idea can have any number of arguments for each answer, split into the two categories of pros and cons.

The result is a simple graphical representation of a question. You can use it for any kind of question and you have a short exploration of a topic. It is of interest for all those that prefer a graphical representation instead of a textual description.

The concept of the IBIS notation are deliberately kept simple to make it useful for many use cases. The only so-to-say “complication” is that you can attach a question to any other item. As such you can:

• question a question (“Shouldn’t we rather discuss X?” or “What are the assumptions behind this question?”), or you can
• question an answer (“To follow this idea, what would we need to take into consideration?”, “What proof do we have for this statement?”), or you can
• question a pro or con (“What could we do to overcome this disadvantage?”).

Each of these questions would then have it’s own structure with answers/ideas and pros&cons. And of course can these have further questions attached. Nothing restricts how big the IBIS diagram might become. You as the creator decide how many questions you want to include asks and how “deep” you want to go with your diagram in order to analyse the topic at hand.

Have a look at the annotated Screenshot above. I used my tool to describe itself.

And why would you use IBIS?

Again, I use the tool to describe itself.

What can you do with the Editor?

Vithanco IBIS supports the creation of IBIS graphs in the following ways.

I will go into more details over time.

Helpfile for IBIS Editor

You can simply use the help function within the application. But you can as well access the content here: IBISHelp.pdf