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
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Interacting with Computers:
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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'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
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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