CHI

The effect of video display unit presentation rate on reading performance was investigated. Reading material was presented at one of the following presentation-rates: 15, 30, 120, 960 cps, or “instant”. In the instant condition, the full text appeared ...

Nine participants used a full screen computer text-editor (XEDIT) with an IBM 3277 terminal to edit marked-up documents at each of three cursor speeds (3.3, 4.7, and 11.0 cm/sec.). Results show that 9% of editing time was spent controlling and moving ...

A “percent-done progress indicator” is a graphical technique which allows the user to monitor the progress through the processing of a task. Progress indicators can be displayed on almost all types of output devices, and can be used with many different ...

Natural language interfaces are frequently proposed as a solution to the problems of “user-unfriendliness” present in many existing computer system interfaces. The panel will examine this claim, and discuss in what circumstances (if any) it is (or could ...

A prototype touch-sensitive tablet is presented. The tablet's main innovation is that it is capable of sensing more than one point of contact at a time. In addition to being able to provide position coordinates, the tablet also gives a measure of degree ...

In the past computer graphics efforts, several researchers have demonstrated that polygon models can be used to produce images of curved surfaces that appear to be smooth and accurate. However, the authors know of no attempt to appraise such imagery by ...

The human-machine interface is generalized beyond traditional control devices to permit physical participation with graphic images. The VIDEOPLACE System combines a participant's live video image with a computer graphic world. It also coordinates the ...

Psychological research methods have been used with increasing frequency in work on computer-human interaction. Judging from the state of the literature and from remarks heard in the halls at conferences such as this, the utility and appropriate roles of ...

In this paper we propose one explanation of why some novice programs are buggier than others. Central to our explanation is the notion of merged goals/plans in which multiple goals are achieved in a single integrated plan. Our arguments are based on our ...

Conventional spreadsheet programs offer a very convenient user interface for many quantitative tasks, but they are restricted to handling precisely-specified quantities and calculations. ASP is a generalized spreadsheet that extends the basic ...

This paper proposes an approach to the characterization of complexity within computer software source texts. We estimate the information content of individual program tokens as the basis for a relative ordering of tokens by their 'uncertainty' or '...

Research on human factors in computer systems has emphasized supporting individuals. This panel will discuss new issues that emerge when computer systems support groups of people and whole organizations. Malone (see following paper) will suggest a ...

This paper argues that it will become increasingly important to extend our concept of user interfaces for individual users of computers to include organizational interfaces for groups of users. A number of suggestions are given for how to develop a ...

Goal items were selected by a series of touch-menu choices among sequentially subdivided ranges of integers or alphabetically ordered words. The number of alternatives at each step, b, was varied, and, inversely, the size of the target area for the ...

The development of a large menu-based interface to an operating system posed a number of interesting user interface questions. Among those were how to determine the user's view of the relationships among the myriad of functions in the system, and how to ...

This paper describes a case study of the Human Factors design, development, and testing of a computer-based financial analysis package. The project applied the “usability goals” method proposed by Bennett (1984) to structure the definition, design, and ...

Many different human factors techniques are available to the designer of a new computer system. This case study examines how one technique, the use of logging data, was used throughout the design of a new text editor which is measurably easy to learn ...

Three text editors were studied using the editor evaluation methodology developed by Roberts and Moran [3, 4]. The results are presented as an extension of the studies by Roberts and Moran, with comparisons to the editors they studied earlier. In ...

In the development of a new interactive graphics application, considerable effort was spent on designing a user interface which would be easy to use. When a portion of the application was completed, typical potential users were brought in to help ...

The Communicating with Sound panel for CHI '85 will focus on ways of expanding the user interface by using sound as a significant means of output. As a user's communication from the computer has progressed from large (and often smeary) printout to a ...

An experiment is reported in which subjects previously naive to text editing learned to use a set of editing commands. Some subjects used abbreviations from the beginning. Others began by using full command names, then switched to the (optional) use of ...

The traditional and still dominant form of object reference in computing systems is symbolic - data files, programs, etc. are initially labeled and subsequently referred to by name. This approach is being supplemented on some systems by a spatial ...

Previous work has shown that there is a major vocabulary barrier for new or intermittent users of computer systems. The barrier can be substantially lowered with a rich, empirically defined, frequency weighted index. This paper discusses experience with ...

Human factors psychologists contribute in many ways to improving human-computer interaction. One contribution involves evaluating existing or prototype systems, in order to assess usability and identify problems. Another involves contributing more ...

Designers of interactive computer systems have begun to incorporate a number of good techniques in the design process to insure that the system will be easy to learn and easy to use. Though not all design projects use all the steps recommended, the ...

The focus here is on the lessons learned from the UDI project for building usability into the software development process. In the UDI project we attempted to engineer a usable system. That process involved:

• defining an appropriate metric for measuring ...

The recent technical literature abounds with a variety of studies documenting and analyzing the problems people encounter in learning to use contemporary computer equipment. This has been a major focus of the recent work in our laboratory ([6], [9]). ...

Transcripts of computer-mail users seeking advice from an expert were studied to investigate the complementary claims that people often do not know what information they need to obtain in order to achieve their goals, and consequently, that experts must ...