Software Ergonomics of Natural Language Systems

Development of natural language systems, apart from the research interest, always worked on the assumption that such systems would be useful in practice. With the arrival of systems and prototypes that can be used, the question needs to be considered as to what makes them usable and what detracts from usability. The initial idea, that the usability of natural language systems was dependent solely on their linguistic capabilities, turned out to be mistaken. Like other systems, they need reasonable diagnostics, legible manuals, and must fit into their environment. As natural language systems, they differ from other systems in how they foreground specific facets of human language behaviour.