mdw@inf.rl.ac.uk (Mike Wilson) (05/31/89)
Below are abstracts of Interacting with Computers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction Volume 1, Number 2 July 1989 __________________________________________________________________ Interacting with Computers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction _______________________________________________________ VOLUME 1 NUMBER 2 July 1989 (Interacting with Computers is published three times a year by Butterworths Scientific Ltd., PO Box 63, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5BH, United Kingdom. It provides an international forum for communication about HCI issues between academia and industry. It allows information to be disseminated in a form accessible to all HCI practitioners, not just to academic researchers. This new journal is produced in conjunction with the BCS Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group. Its aim is to stimulate ideas and provoke widespread discussion with a forward-looking perspective. A dialogue will be built up between theorists, researchers and human factors engineers in academia, industry and commerce thus fostering interdisciplinary dependencies. For further information about this journal, contact the publishers or the general editor: Dr Dan Diaper, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K. e-mail(bitnet): 490DIAPER%uk.ac.livpol.vax@UKACRL e-mail(arpanet): 490DIAPER%uk.ac.livpol.vax@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A FORMAL STRUCTURE FOR AUTOMATIC ICONS Kim Fairchild, Greg Meredith and Alan Wexelblat MCC Technology Program, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, Kaleido Building II, 9390 Research Boulevard, Austin, TX 78759, USA The paper presents a formal structure for describing icons and their relations to objects. Icons are mappings from icon space, which deals with representational properties, to object space, which deals with computational objects. The nature of this mapping is formally described. An extension called automatic icons is proposed. The automatic-icon model subsumes currently-used static and animated icons and gives powerful and flexible new tools we call automatic icons. Some applications of automatic icons, and a tool built by the authors to help system designers create automatic icons, are described. The processes outlined in this paper are the subject of a pending patent. Keywords: user interface design, icons, automatic icons ------------------------------------------------------------------------ HUMAN FACTORS IN EXPERT SYSTEM DESIGN: CAN LESSONS IN THE PROMOTION OF METHODS BE LEARNED FROM COMMERCIAL DP? Clive Bright Interdisciplinary Higher Degrees Scheme, University of Aston, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK. email: brightck@mail.aston.ac.uk Ann Inman BIS Applied Systems Ltd., Ringway House, Birmingham B4 6AF, UK. and Rob Stammers Applied Psychology Division, University of Aston, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK The way that human factors methods and information are presented to designers of expert systems is extremely important if such methods are to be widely adopted. The nature of human factors knowledge makes such presentation problematic. The problems are somewhat analogous to those encountered in the promotion of 'structured development standards' within the commercial data processing environment. In commercial DP, structured development standards are promoted on the basis that increasing development costs incurred at an early stage can be offset by reduced maintenance and enhancement costs later on. Within human factors, the user-centered design approach to expert system development is promoted on the basis that it will increase the likelyhood of producing 'useful' and 'usable' systems. In neither DP nor human factors, can tangible benefits of adopting more rigorous methods be provided. Both, however, appeal to some extent, to the 'common sense' of the system developers. By comparing the two fields the paper assesses whether human factors specialists might learn from their DP counterparts when attempting to promote the adoption of appropriate methods. One feature of DP structured development standards which is pertinent to human factors is that of 'tailorability'. The paper discusses the suggestion the the adoption of the human factors methods will largely depend on the way that such methods can be tailored to meet the requirements of expert system development in industrial and commercial environments. An analysis of these requirements, through a series of case studies, is being conducted, and this work is briefly described. Keywords: human factors, expert systems, user-centered design, commercial DP, development standards, structured methods ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INDUCTIVE ANALYSIS APPLIED TO EVALUATION OF A CAL TUTORIAL A. Brooks Scottish HCI Centre, Department of Computer Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G11XH Scotland. P. Vezza Phillips TMC, 103 Westerhill Road, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow G64 2QR, Scotland. A human-computer interaction experiment is reported in which subjects used a CAL (computer-aided learning) tutorial to solve four problems about housing benefit regulations. The results are analysed inductively, with the analysis expedited by the use of inductive rule learning techniques. As the results of the inductive analysis were unavailable at the time, traditional statistics were used in the comparative evaluation of the CAL tutorial. Consequently a useful insight into the advantages of inductive analysis was provided and it is suggested that such an analysis might be of use for any MCI experiment. Keywords: rule induction, experiment, CAL, StrathTutor, housing benefit regulations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE WORKERS: A PILOT STUDY OF JOB IMPACT. Kathleen Foley Curley Center for Information Systems Research, MIT, One Amherst Street Bldg. E-40 192 Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. There is general agreement that the rapid spread of computing technology to 'end-users' across a variety of occupations will have profound impact on the future working life of almost every individual. There is however much disagreement on what the nature of that impact will be. During a pilot study on end-user computing we conducted in-depth interviews with 12 'knowledge workers' about the impact of computer technology on their jobs and their working life. One objective of the research was to get a clearer understanding of how people individually feel about their jobs and their use of computers. From their experiences and drawing on the research of others, the author identifies four job impacts. These are not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather frame the range and quality of impact as the people who work with the technology have described it. Two of these impacts seem to be unique to information of 'intellectual technologies' that support knowledge workers, while two appear to be more universal themes of technology change. Identifying these dominant impacts provides a more focussed picture of how individuals are currently coping with the infusion of computer technology and at the same time what they speculate about the future of working life in an information-intensive age. Keywords: computer technology, jobs, job demands, job influences ------------------------------------------------------------------------ HUMAN FACTORS OF JOURNAL USAGE AND DESIGN OF ELECTRONIC TEXTS Andrew Dillon, John Richardson and Cliff McKnight The HUSAT Reseach Centre, Elms Grove, Loughborough, Leics LE11 1RG, UK The paper reports on a study of journal usage amongst human factors researchers. The aim of the study was to shed light on how journals are used with a view to making recommendations about the development of a full-text, searchable database that would support such usage. The results indicate that levels of usage vary over time, the range of journals covered is small and readers overlook a large proportion of the contents of articles. Furthermore, three reading strategies are observed which indicate that the presentation of journal articles is not ideally suited to there uses. The implications of these findings for developing suitable computer-based applications are discussed. Keywords: electronic text, journal usage, hypertext, reading from screens and paper, text manipulation, reading strategies ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PERSONAL BROWSER: A TOOL FOR DIRECTED NAVIGATION IN HYPERTEXT SYSTEMS Andrew Monk Department of Psychology, University of York, York Y01 5DD UK e-mail: AM@york.ac.uk In most hypertext applications there will be occasions where the user knows the location of the information being sought because that location has been visited regularly in the past. This directed navigation can be distinguished from exploratory navigation where the user cannot specify precisely where the information might be within the hypertext system. Directed navigation can be facilitated by providing a personal browser which lists and gives direct access to frequently visited locations selected by the user. Different ways in which this could be implemented are discussed including facilities for automating the addition of new buttons to the personal browser. An appendix provides the code needed to program a demonstration within HyperCard. This monitors the number of times each card is visited and asks whether buttons should be added after a card has been visited some criterion number of times. Keywords: Hypertext, browsing, navigation ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 'WORKING TO RULES': A CASE OF TAYLOR-MADE EXPERT SYSTEMS Peter Holden Innovation and Technology Assessment Unit, Cranfield Institute of Technology, Cranfield, Bedford MK43 0AL, UK. Taylorism popularised the view that through the fragmentation of manual tasks into specialised, repeatable constituent activities, and the removal of tacit knowledge and discernment from the shopfloor worker, there would be significant increases in productivity. Where Taylorism mechanised and downgraded manual tasks, this paper argues that a similar 'machine-centred' approach towards the development of expert systems will degrade the characteristics of human knowledge through an emphasis upon the automation of expertise. In order to move away from an automation focus, it is necessary to move towards systems which augment rather than replace the qualities of human tacit knowledge. Problem identification is a critical first stage in the development lifecycle because it is here where the decision to enhance or replace expertise is made. It is a process of understanding the problem from a number of perspectives; however, the emphasis under Taylorism is upon the technical dimension, with a disregard for organisational and human factors which are central factors in the identification process. The multiple-perspective embraces the technical, organisational and personal perspectives in a wider framework of enquiry. It should help those responsible for introducing expert systems into an organisation to recognise the limitations of a purely technical perspective and to choose the right combination of elements to match the specific needs of the organisation. Keywords: Taylorism, expert systems, development framework, scientific management, technical perspective, multiple-perspective ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Author's Reply: MODELLING DEVICES AND MODELLING SPEAKERS T.J.M. Bench-Capon and A.M. McEnery Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, P.O. Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK e-mail: sq35@ibm.liverpool.ac.uk The roles played in an illocutionary act by models of the means of communication and the communicator are distinguished, and qualitative differences between the models appropriate in the two cases identified. Applied to human computer interaction, this means that a user must have models of the computer both as a communications device and a communications medium, and of the system author as interlocutor. Keywords: speech acts, illocutionary acts, user models, human-computer interaction