Kai H. Lim
Abstract
Norman proposed a model describing the sequence of user activities involved in human-computer interaction. Through this model, Norman provides a rationale for why direct-manipulation interfaces may be preferred to other design alternatives. Based on action identification theory we developed several hypotheses about the operations of Norman's model and tested them in a laboratory experiment. The results show that users of a direct-manipulation interface and a menu-based interface did not differ in the total amount of time used to perform a task. However, with the direct-manipulation interface, more time is devoted to performing motor actions, but this is offset by shorter nonmotor time. Furthermore, there are significant interactions between task familiarity, instructions, and the type of interface, indicating that Norman's model may not hold under all conditions.
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Index Terms
- An experimental investigation of the interactive effects of interface style, instructions, and task familiarity on user performance
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Reviews
William J. Hankley
Both qualitative reasoning about human-computer interaction and a simple experiment are presented. The authors explain a refinement of an earlier model by Norman . They review the concepts of action-identification (to distinguish between high-level and low-level actions and commands) and automaticity (the concept of learned automatic behaviors). They next present a simple 2×2×2 experiment observing motor performance time and total performance time for simple operations using either a direct manipulation interface (drag and drop) or a menu interface (in which the user clicks on the source and target objects). They show that the direct manipulation interface has a longer motor performance time, but typically a shorter mental time. They also show that familiar tasks are better presented using higher-level instructions, and less familiar tasks are better presented via lower-level instructions. The model and experimental results are such that, once they are presented and explained, it is easy to say that the model was intuitive and the results expected. Some of the statements about the semantic distance between commands and actions warrant further clarification of the model.
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