Publication statistics
Pub. period:1982-2002
Pub. count:36
Number of co-authors:47
Co-authors
Number of publications with 3 favourite co-authors:
Philip J. Barnard:15Victoria Bellotti:7Nick Hammond:7 Productive colleagues
Allan MacLean's 3 most productive colleagues in number of publications:
Jonathan Grudin:106Paul Dourish:92Bill Buxton:78
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Allan MacLean
Publications by Allan MacLean (bibliography)
Tolmie, Peter, Pycock, James, Diggins, Tim, MacLean, Allan and Karsenty, Alain (2002): Unremarkable computing. In: Terveen, Loren (ed.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2002 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 20-25, 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota. pp. 399-406.
Dourish, Paul, Bentley, Richard, Jones, Rachel and MacLean, Allan (1999): Getting Some Perspective: Using Process Descriptions to Index Document History. In: Proceedings of the International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work 1999 November 14-17, 1999, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. pp. 375-384.
“Process descriptions are used in workflow and related systems to describe the flow of work and organisational responsibility in business processes, and to aid in coordination. However, the division of a working process into a sequence of steps provides only a partial view of the work involved. In many cases, the performance of individual tasks in a larger process may depend on interpretations and understandings of how other aspects of the work were conducted. We present an example from an ethnographic investigation of one particular organisation, and introduce a mechanism, which we call "Perspectives," for dealing with it. A "Perspective" uses the process description to provide an index into the history of a document moving through a process. Perspectives allow workflow systems to manage and present information about the execution of specific process instances within the general frame of abstract process descriptions.”
© All rights reserved Dourish et al. and/or ACM Press
Shum, Simon Buckingham, MacLean, Allan, Bellotti, Victoria and Hammond, N. V. (1997): Graphical Argumentation and Design Cognition. In Human-Computer Interaction, 12 (3) pp. 267-300.
“Many efforts have been made to exploit the properties of graphical notations to support argument construction and communication. In the context of design rationale capture, we are interested in graphical argumentation structures as cognitive tools to support individual and collaborative design in real time. This context of use requires a detailed understanding of how a new representational structure integrates into the cognitive and discursive flow of design, that is, whether it provides supportive or intrusive structure. This article presents a use-oriented analysis of a graphical argumentation notation known as QOC (Questions, Options, and Criteria). Through a series of empirical studies, we show that it provides most support when elaborating poorly understood design spaces, but is a distraction when evaluating well-constrained design spaces. This is explained in terms of the cognitive compatibility between argumentative reasoning and the demands of different modes of designing. We then provide an account based on the collaborative affordances of QOC in group design meetings, and extend this to discuss the evolution of QOC argumentation from short term working memory to long term group memory.”
© All rights reserved Shum et al. and/or Taylor and Francis
Dourish, Paul, Holmes, Jim, MacLean, Allan, Marqvardsen, Pernille and Zbyslaw, Alex (1996): Freeflow: Mediating Between Representation and Action in Workflow Systems. In: Olson, Gary M., Olson, Judith S. and Ackerman, Mark S. (eds.) Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work November 16 - 20, 1996, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. pp. 190-198.
“In order to understand some problems associated with workflow, we set out an analysis of workflow systems, identifying a number of basic issues in the underlying technology. This points to the conflation of temporal and dependency information as the source of a number of these problems. We describe Freeflow, a prototype which addresses these problems using a variety of technical innovations, including a rich constraint-based process modelling formalism, and the use of declarative dependency relationships. Its focus is on mediation between process and action, rather than the enactment of a process. We outline the system and its design principles, and illustrate the features of our approach with examples from ongoing work.”
© All rights reserved Dourish et al. and/or ACM Press
Bellotti, Victoria, Blandford, Ann, Duke, David, MacLean, Allan, May, Jon and Nigay, Laurence (1996): Interpersonal Access Control in Computer-Mediated Communications: A Systematic Analysis of the Design Space. In Human-Computer Interaction, 11 (4) pp. 357-432.
“Certain design projects raise difficult user-interface problems that are not easily amenable to designers' intuition or rapid prototyping due to their novelty, conceptual complexity, and the difficulty of conducting appropriate user studies. Interpersonal access control in computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems is just such a problem. We describe a collection of systematic theory-based analyses of a system prototype that inherited its control mechanism from two preexisting systems. We demonstrate that the collective use of system and user modeling techniques provides insight into this complex design problem and enables us to examine the implications of design decisions for users and implementation. The analyses identify a number of weaknesses in the prototype and are used to propose ways of making substantive refinements to improve its simplicity and appropriateness for two tasks: altering one's accessibility and distinguishing between who can make what kinds of connections. We conclude with a discussion of some critical issues that are relevant for CMC systems, and reflect on the process of applying formal human-computer interaction (HCI) techniques in informal, exploratory design contexts.”
© All rights reserved Bellotti et al. and/or Taylor and Francis
Bellotti, Victoria, Shum, Simon Buckingham, MacLean, Allan and Hammond, Nick (1995): Multidisciplinary Modeling in HCI Design ...In Theory and in Practice. In: Katz, Irvin R., Mack, Robert L., Marks, Linn, Rosson, Mary Beth and Nielsen, Jakob (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 95 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference May 7-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado. pp. 146-153.
“In one of the largest multidisciplinary projects in basic HCI research to date, multiple analytic HCI techniques were combined and applied within an innovative design context to problems identified by designers of an AV communication system, or media space. The problems were presented to user-, system- and design-analysts distributed across Europe. The results of analyses were integrated and passed back to the designers, and to other domain experts, for assessment. The aim of this paper is to illustrate some theory-based insights gained into key problems in media space design and to convey lessons learned about the process of contributing to design using multiple theoretical perspectives. We also describe some obstacles which must be overcome if such techniques are to be transferred successfully to practice.”
© All rights reserved Bellotti et al. and/or ACM Press
MacLean, Allan and McKerlie, Diane (1995): Design space analysis and use representations. In: Scenario-based design 1995. pp. 183-207.
McKerlie, Diane L. and MacLean, Allan (1993): QOC in Action: Using Design Rationale to Support Design. In: Ashlund, Stacey, Mullet, Kevin, Henderson, Austin, Hollnagel, Erik and White, Ted (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 93 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 24-29, 1993, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. p. 519.
“Design Rationale emphasises working with explicit representations not only of possible design solutions, but also of the reasons and processes behind them. Although the arguments for using Design Rationale are compelling, there is still very little experience of supplying the current approaches in practice. To explore its use in a practical setting we have been collaborating with the Open University using QOC (Questions, Options, Criteria) to design hypermedia interfaces for presenting course material (currently text books, course notes, and videos). This video illustrates some of the ways in which we have used QOC to support our activities.”
© All rights reserved McKerlie and and/or ACM Press
Grudin, Jonathan, MacLean, Allan and Overmyer, Scott (1993): Report on the 1992 East-West International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (St. Petersburg, Russia, August 4-8). In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 25 (2) pp. 36-39.
“The East-West International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction was held August 4-8, 1992 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The second conference in an annual series, it brought together researchers from the former USSR, Europe, the United States, Japan, and Australia. At the time of the 1991 conference, the USSR was still intact (by about two weeks). By 1992 it had become the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Republics (henceforth CIS/Baltic). The conference committee settled on the more stable (if not entirely accurate) designation "East-West" to characterize the communities that came together. Before summarizing the technical element of the conference, we will give a brief description of who was involved and how the conference was structured. This may be of particular interest to anyone considering attending in 1993.”
© All rights reserved Grudin et al. and/or ACM Press
Gaver, William W., Moran, Thomas P., MacLean, Allan, Lovstrand, Lennart, Dourish, Paul, Carter, Kathleen and Buxton, Bill (1992): Realizing a Video Environment: EuroPARC's RAVE System. In: Bauersfeld, Penny, Bennett, John and Lynch, Gene (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 92 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference June 3-7, 1992, Monterey, California. pp. 27-35.
“At EuroPARC, we have been exploring ways to allow physically separated colleagues to work together effectively and naturally. In this paper, we briefly discuss several examples of our work in the context of three themes that have emerged: the need to support the full range of shared work; the desire to ensure privacy without giving up unobtrusive awareness; and the possibility of creating systems which blur the boundaries between people, technologies and the everyday world.”
© All rights reserved Gaver et al. and/or ACM Press
MacLean, Allan (1992): Rank Xerox Cambridge EuroPARC. In: Monk, Andrew, Diaper, Dan and Harrison, Michael D. (eds.) Proceedings of the Seventh Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers VII August 15-18, 1992, University of York, UK. pp. 515-518.
MacLean, Allan, Bellotti, Victoria, Young, Richard M. and Moran, Thomas P. (1991): Reaching Through Analogy: A Design Rationale Perspective on Roles of Analogy. In: Robertson, Scott P., Olson, Gary M. and Olson, Judith S. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 91 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 28 - June 5, 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana. pp. 167-172.
“A powerful way of reaching through technology is to use analogy to make the technology transparent by exploiting the user's familiarity with other situations. However, analogy has a number of roles in user interface design in addition to the one of helping the user understand the system. In this paper we consider some of these roles and their relationship to our Design Rationale (DR) framework (MacLean et al., 1989). Our goals are to develop the DR framework by exploring the implications of explicitly taking account of analogy, and to articulate an account of the roles of analogy in design by organising them around DR concepts.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or ACM Press
Hammond, Nick, Barnard, Philip J., Coutaz, Joëlle, Harrison, Michael, MacLean, Allan and Young, Richard M. (1991): Modelling User, System and Design: Results of a Scenarios Matrix Exercise. In: Robertson, Scott P., Olson, Gary M. and Olson, Judith S. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 91 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 28 - June 5, 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana. pp. 377-380.
“This panel will discuss the results of an exercise aimed at investigating how various modelling approaches from Cognitive Science and Software Engineering can be integrated into HCI design. Each panelist will outline their approach and present their approach's performance on two agreed upon design scenarios.”
© All rights reserved Hammond et al. and/or ACM Press
MacLean, Allan, Young, Richard M., Bellotti, Victoria and Moran, Thomas P. (1991): Questions, Options, and Criteria: Elements of Design Space Analysis. In Human-Computer Interaction, 6 (3) pp. 201-250.
“Design Space Analysis is an approach to representing design rationale. It uses a semiformal notation, called QOC (Questions, Options, and Criteria), to represent the design space around an artifact. The main constituents of QOC are Questions identifying key design issues, Options providing possible answers to the Questions, and Criteria for assessing and comparing the Options. Design Space Analysis also takes account of justifications for the design (and possible alternative designs) that reflect considerations such as consistency, models and analogies, and relevant data and theory. A Design Space Analysis does not produce a record of the design process but is instead a coproduct of design and has to be constructed alongside the artifact itself. Our work is motivated by the notion that a Design Space Analysis will repay the investment in its creation by supporting both the original process of design and subsequent work on redesign and reuse by (a) providing an explicit representation to aid reasoning about the design and about the consequences of changes to it and (b) serving as a vehicle for communication, for example, among members of the design team or among the original designers and later maintainers of a system. Our work to date emphasizes the nature of the QOC representation over processes for creating it, so these claims serve as goals rather than objectives we have achieved. This article describes the elements of Design Space Analysis and illustrates them by reference to analyses of existing designs and to studies of the concepts and arguments used by designers during design discussions.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or Taylor and Francis
Cypher, Allen, Grudin, Jonathan, MacLean, Allan, Naimark, Michael, Okada, Ken-ichi, Patel, Mukesh, Press, Larry, Price, Blaine, Tarantola, Carlo and Welles, Marilyn (1991): The First Moscow International Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 23 (4) pp. 11-12.
“The First Moscow International Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction gathered approximately 15 non-Soviet and 75 Soviet computer professionals for a week-long workshop at the International Center for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) in Moscow. At this workshop, 50 paper presentations and 25 product and prototype demos were presented. This report provides a brief description of the workshop and opportunities for future interaction.”
© All rights reserved Cypher et al. and/or ACM Press
Bellotti, Victoria, MacLean, Allan and Moran, Thomas P. (1991): What Makes a Good Design Question?. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 23 (4) pp. 80-81.
MacLean, Allan (1991): Design Space Analysis: Representing the Design Rationale for User Interfaces. In: First Moscow International HCI91 Workshop Proceedings 1991. pp. 200-206.
“Design Space Analysis is a central component of a framework we are developing to represent the design rationale for designed artifacts. Our current work focusses more specifically on the design of user interfaces. A design space analysis is represented using the QOC notation, which consists of Questions identifying key design issues, Options providing possible answers to the Questions, and Criteria for assessing and comparing the Options. In this short paper we give an overview of our approach and some examples of the research issues we are currently tackling.”
© All rights reserved MacLean and/or Intl. Centre for Scientific And Technical Information
MacLean, Allan, Carter, Kathleen, Lovstrand, Lennart and Moran, Thomas P. (1990): User-Tailorable Systems: Pressing the Issues with Buttons. In: Carrasco, Jane and Whiteside, John (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 90 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference 1990, Seattle, Washington,USA. pp. 175-182.
“It is impossible to design systems which are appropriate for all users and all situations. We believe that a useful technique is to have end users tailor their systems to match their personal work practices. This requires not only systems which can be tailored, but a culture within which users feel in control of the system and in which tailoring is the norm. In a two-pronged research project we have worked closely with a group of users to develop a system to support tailoring and to help the users evolve a "tailoring culture". This has resulted in a flexible system based around the use of distributed on-screen Buttons to support a range of tailoring techniques.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or ACM Press
MacLean, Allan, Bellotti, Victoria and Young, Richard M. (1990): What Rationale is There in Design?. In: Diaper, Dan, Gilmore, David J., Cockton, Gilbert and Shackel, Brian (eds.) INTERACT 90 - 3rd IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction August 27-31, 1990, Cambridge, UK. pp. 207-212.
“Design Rationale is a framework for locating a proposed design within a design space. It incorporates an explicit representation of design Options, and an explicit representation of Criteria for choosing among the Options. This paper explores the relationship between Design Rationale and design practice. It uses Design Rationale as a way of analysing the content of a design session to help us understand requirements for future ways of improving the design process.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or North-Holland
MacLean, Allan, Young, Richard M. and Moran, Thomas P. (1989): Design Rationale: The Argument Behind the Artifact. In: Bice, Ken and Lewis, Clayton H. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 89 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 30 - June 4, 1989, Austin, Texas. pp. 247-252.
“We assert that the product of user interface design should be not only the interface itself but also a rationale for why the interface is the way it is. We describe a representation for design based around a semi-formal notation which allows us explicitly to represent alternative design options and reasons for choosing among them. We illustrate the approach with examples from an analysis of scrolling mechanisms. We discuss the roles we expect such a representation to play in improving the coherence of designs and in communicating reasons for choices to others, whether designers, maintainers, collaborators or end users.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or ACM Press
Barnard, Philip J., Ellis, Judi and MacLean, Allan (1989): Relating Ideal and Non-Ideal Verbalised Knowledge to Performance. In: Sutcliffe, Alistair G. and Macauley, Linda (eds.) Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers V August 5-8, 1989, University of Nottingham, UK. pp. 461-473.
“It is important to understand relationships between knowledge and performance. We need to establish what users really know about systems rather than simply modelling ideal knowledge. A picture probe task is used to elicit user's ideal and non-ideal knowledge of task-action mappings in two different interfaces supporting common functionality. The users of these interfaces articulated different amounts of both ideal knowledge and non-ideal knowledge. For a given interface, however, users who articulate more ideal knowledge of task action mappings generally perform well but their amount of non-ideal knowledge does not relate systematically to their performance. Non-ideal knowledge discriminated between interfaces but not between the relatively efficient and inefficient users. We discuss these results in relation to models which should ultimately help in system design, and in relation to the provision of diagnostic tests and adequate on-line support for users.”
© All rights reserved Barnard et al. and/or Cambridge University Press
Barnard, Philip J., MacLean, Allan and Wilson, Michael (1988): Navigating Integrated Facilities: Initiating and Terminating Interaction Sequences. In: Soloway, Elliot, Frye, Douglas and Sheppard, Sylvia B. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 88 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference June 15-19, 1988, Washington, DC, USA. pp. 121-126.
“Human performance data are reported for two dialogue conventions involving menu interactions with integrated facilities. Users prepared material for overhead foils in a six session experiment. An initiation style of dialogue in a flexible menu hierarchy was compared with a strict hierarchy involving explicit termination of dialogue sequences. Although tasks could be performed in the same number of steps with either interface, initiation had greater time and transaction costs than termination. The results are discussed in relation to the trade-offs that need to be considered in designing for navigational flexibility and to requirements for modeling user behavior.”
© All rights reserved Barnard et al. and/or ACM Press
Young, Richard M. and MacLean, Allan (1988): Choosing Between Methods: Analysing the User's Decision Space in Terms of Schemas and Linear Models. In: Soloway, Elliot, Frye, Douglas and Sheppard, Sylvia B. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 88 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference June 15-19, 1988, Washington, DC, USA. pp. 139-143.
“We offer an account of how users choose between alternative methods which take different times to accomplish the same task. Users offered a choice between two methods do not necessarily pick the faster. We argue that users reduce the complexity of the decision space by applying a 'simple compensation schema' acquired from everyday experience. Linear models of performance time enable us to predict how users will view the situation in terms of this schema, and how accurate assessment of the optimal choices within the schema-based assimilations can result in an apparent bias in favour of one method.”
© All rights reserved Young and MacLean and/or ACM Press
Barnard, Philip J., Wilson, Michael and MacLean, Allan (1987): Approximate modelling of cognitive activity: Towards an expert system design aid. In: Graphics Interface 87 (CHI+GI 87) April 5-9, 1987, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. pp. 21-26.
Barnard, Philip J., Wilson, Michael and MacLean, Allan (1986): The Elicitation of System Knowledge by Picture Probes. In: Mantei, Marilyn and Orbeton, Peter (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 86 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 13-17, 1986, Boston, Massachusetts. pp. 235-240.
“A technique is described in which a user's knowledge of a software package is elicited by means of a series of photographs depicting the system in a variety of states. The resultant verbal protocols were codified and scored in relation to the way in which the system actually worked. In the illustrative study described, the probes were administered twice after 5 and 10 hrs of system experience with an office product (VisiOn). The number of true claims elicited increased with experience but the number of false claims remained stable. The potential value of the technique and its outputs are discussed.”
© All rights reserved Barnard et al. and/or ACM Press
MacLean, Allan, Barnard, Philip J. and Wilson, Michael (1986): Rapid Prototyping of Dialogue for Human Factors Research: The EASIE Approach. In: Harrison, Michael D. and Monk, Andrew (eds.) Proceedings of the Second Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers II August 23-26, 1986, University of York, UK. pp. 180-195.
“Facilities for the rapid prototyping of dialogue are an extremely important component of a successful User Interface Management System (UIMS). Exactly how the UIMS should be optimised will depend on the type of application being developed and the environment in which it is being used. This paper focusses on the support for dialogue construction provided in EASIE (Experimental Applications System for Integrated Environments). EASIE is specifically designed to support human factors research into the human interface of so called 'integrated systems' by providing both flexibility and simplicity in the construction and modification of the dialogue. This is done by treating the dialogue specification at two distinct levels. A Dialogue Script (DS) text file contains the minimum amount of information necessary to define and modify the dialogue, and a separate Dialogue Interface (DI) maps the DS onto the basic functionality of the application.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or Cambridge University Press
Wilson, Michael, Barnard, Philip J. and MacLean, Allan (1986): Using an Expert System to Convey HCI Information. In: Harrison, Michael D. and Monk, Andrew (eds.) Proceedings of the Second Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers II August 23-26, 1986, University of York, UK. pp. 482-497.
“Where the focus is upon human cognition, guidelines and technical reports are an inadequate means of conveying information from the research to the design communities concerned with HCI. Automated databases or simple expert systems assist in accessing relevant information. They do not, however, readily predict behaviour in novel settings. This possibility is offered by expert systems that incorporate a cognitive analysis of user knowledge and human information processing activity. The present paper outlines an approach to Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) in which a theoretical framework (Barnard, 1985; in press) is used to derive an explicit representation of cognitive activity associated with dialogue tasks. The representation constructed (or Task Model) includes a specification of mental processes; procedural knowledge; the contents of episodic memory; and a characterisation of the way in which the cognitive mechanism is controlled during task execution. Prespecified mappings from the contents of Task Models then predict aspects of user behaviour. Components of an example analysis, implemented in a working expert system, are used to illustrate the approach.”
© All rights reserved Wilson et al. and/or Cambridge University Press
Wilson, M. D., Barnard, Philip J. and MacLean, Allan (1985): Analysing the Learning of Command Sequences in a Menu System. In: Johnson, Peter and Cook, Stephen (eds.) Proceedings of the Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers I August 17-20, 1985, University of East Anglia. pp. 63-75.
“Although there is a substantial literature on both novice and expert performance, there is little data on the transition from one to the other. This paper presents data from 8 subjects performing a core set of tasks in each of word processing, graph drawing and calculation environments during this transition. A descriptive model of the command structure used in these tasks is presented which permits the analysis of both the successful attempts to complete the tasks and those involving deviations from optimal performance. The pattern of deviations changes over learning in that the proportion of those involving major re-attempts at tasks decreases while that involving local corrections increases. Two classes of mental representation are used to explain the changing performance: those involving general system principles, and those using specific procedures. The changes that take place during learning are characterised as an increase in the proportion of specific procedures in the repertoire of representation sampled during task performance.”
© All rights reserved Wilson et al. and/or Cambridge University Press
MacLean, Allan, Barnard, Philip J. and Wilson, M. D. (1985): Evaluating the Human Interface of a Data Entry System: User Choice and Performance Measures Yield Different Tradeoff Functions. In: Johnson, Peter and Cook, Stephen (eds.) Proceedings of the Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers I August 17-20, 1985, University of East Anglia. pp. 172-185.
“When people use computer systems, they are often faced with alternative methods for carrying out a given task. They have to be able to judge which method is likely to be most appropriate for the particular task with which they are faced. A study is presented which compares the most common means of evaluation used in computer design, the time to carry out a given task, with the method the user actually chooses to carry out the task. The results suggest that users are not good at optimising their behaviour on the criterion used by designers.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or Cambridge University Press
Barnard, Philip J., MacLean, Allan and Hammond, Nick (1984): User Representations of Ordered Sequences of Command Operations. In: Shackel, Brian (ed.) INTERACT 84 - 1st IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 4-7, 1984, London, UK. pp. 289-293.
“An experiment is reported in which users learned how to operate a "laboratory" system for handling electronic mail. Two variables were manipulated. Users were asked to learn one of two task structures involving eight operations. In one form the task was structured into a sequence of four pairs of semantically related operations (4x2). In the other, operations were structured into two groups of four on the basis of their abstract class. Two sets of command names were employed one being less discriminable than the other. Both variables were found to influence the ways in which users learned the system. The results suggested that users of the 4x2 structure were constructing mental representations in which individual operations were more semantically integrated than users of the 2x4 grouped structure.”
© All rights reserved Barnard et al. and/or North-Holland
MacLean, Allan, Barnard, Philip J. and Hammond, Nick (1984): Recall as an Indicant of Performance in Interactive Systems. In: Shackel, Brian (ed.) INTERACT 84 - 1st IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 4-7, 1984, London, UK. pp. 311-315.
“Recall measures are often used in the area of human computer communication as a quick means of obtaining an index of the 'goodness' of alternative command sets. However there is a rich assortment of additional information available to mediate use of an on-line system, which is absent in conditions under which recall is typically elicited. The present paper reviews a number of experiments in which both on-line performance and recall measures are available, with a view to determining the extent to which recall can be used to explore the user's representation of the computer system in interactive performance. In addition, it relates the phenomena observed to established findings from the psychological study of memory.”
© All rights reserved MacLean et al. and/or North-Holland
Hammond, Nick, Hinton, Geoffrey, Barnard, Philip J., MacLean, Allan, Long, John and Whitefield, Andy (1984): Evaluating the Interface of a Document Processor: A Comparison of Expert Judgement and User Observation. In: Shackel, Brian (ed.) INTERACT 84 - 1st IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 4-7, 1984, London, UK. pp. 725-729.
“Efforts to improve the usability of systems have resulted in the development of several techniques for interface evaluation. This paper explores evaluation through (1) assessment by Human Factors researchers and (2) analysis of user performance. Three pairs of researchers prepared reports on the interface of a document processor. Separately, five novice users were observed learning the system. The two evaluations generated overlapping but separable classes of information. User testing provided low-level information on procedural and conceptual difficulties, while experts provided a more integrated overview and hypotheses concerning the sources of problems.”
© All rights reserved Hammond et al. and/or North-Holland
Grudin, Jonathan and MacLean, Allan (1984): Adapting a Psychophysical Method to Measure Performance and Preference Tradeoffs in Human-Computer Interaction. In: Shackel, Brian (ed.) INTERACT 84 - 1st IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 4-7, 1984, London, UK. pp. 737-741.
“An experimental methodology for contrasting certain design alternatives and quickly determining user preferences and performance tradeoffs is presented. It is shown how this experimental paradigm, used for psychophysical measurement, may be applied to the field of human-computer interaction. Where it can be applied, it promises a relatively quick determination of user preference and performance characteristics and tradeoffs on these measures with variation in parameters governing the user situation. Because the methodology is within-subject, it may also facilitate the study of individual differences.”
© All rights reserved Grudin and MacLean and/or North-Holland
Hammond, Nick, Jorgensen, A., MacLean, Allan, Barnard, Philip J. and Long, John (1983): Design Practice and Interface Usability: Evidence from Interviews with Designers. In: Smith, Raoul N., Pew, Richard W. and Janda, Ann (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 83 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conferenc December 12-15, 1983, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. pp. 40-44.
Barnard, Philip J., Hammond, Nick, MacLean, Allan and Morton, J. (1982): Learning and Remembering Interactive Commands. In: Nichols, Jean A. and Schneider, Michael L. (eds.) Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems March 15-17, 1982, Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States. pp. 2-7.
Barnard, Philip J., Hammond, N. V., MacLean, Allan and Morton, J. (1982): Learning and Remembering Interactive Commands in a Text-Editing Task. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 1 (4) pp. 347-358.
“Users of interactive computer systems often experience difficulty in learning and remembering the command vocabulary needed to communicate with the system. This study investigates how task and vocabulary differences affect initial learning and subsequent memory for commands used in a simple editing task. Systems with semantically specific terms were learned no more quickly than systems with semantically general terms, but the nature of the command vocabulary induced different learning strategies. Users of the specific vocabulary made less use of help (provided in the form of a command menu and definitions of operations) than did users of the general command vocabulary. However, users of the specific vocabulary appeared to make more time actively considering options before deciding to consult HELP. These strategy differences were reflected in users' memory for the commands and the task operations 2 weeks later. In addition, the learning strategies adopted were dependent on users' predispositions as measured by individual difference questionnaires.”
© All rights reserved Barnard et al. and/or Taylor and Francis
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