HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Jakob Nielsen <nielsen@bellcore.com>
Subject: Re: How do you handle navigation?
Organization: Bellcore - Bell Communications Research
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d1
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 19:57:11 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.165423.4799@cco.caltech.edu> Andrea Lynne Gallagher,
andreag@cco.caltech.edu writes:
>Borgman et al, and George Formus has a number of papers on 
>fisheye views in various publications of the ACM SIGCHI.

Make that George Furnas.

Of course, regarding the general problemsof how to navigate and how to show
users their current location, I would also recommend that you check out the
hypertext literature. For example, chapter 8 of my own book, Hypertext and
Hypermedia (Academic Press) deals with navigation issues, and there have
been many relevant papers at the various Hypertext conferences.
--
Jakob Nielsen, nielsen@bellcore.com, fax (201)  829-2645
Bellcore, MRE 2P-370, 445 South St., Morristown, NJ 09792-1910, USA
From: bsherman@genome.lbl.gov (Brad Sherman)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: E-mail addresses and HCI
Date: 29 Jul 1992 19:29:49 GMT
Organization: Institute of Forest Genetics DataBase
Reply-To: bsherman@genome.lbl.gov (Brad Sherman)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.243.224.80
Keywords: DNS, X400, X500

In article <1992Jul29.004605.20014@newshost.anu.edu.au> hugh@rschp1.anu.edu.au (Hugh Fisher) writes:
>
>  Has anyone done any studies on how easy it is to use and
>  remember different formats of e-mail address? I'd like to
>  get some opinions on existing schemes, in particular Internet
>  domain names compared to X.400. There is a lot of discussion
>  about the future of the Internet going on right now, and one
>  of the possible changes is from domain naming to X.400.
>
>
>	E-mail	jsmith@istvax.itsyd.ack.com.au
>	X.400	C=AU; ADMD=TELEMEMO; PRMD=ACKSYD01; O=ACK;
>		OU1=ITSYD; S=SMITH; G=JOHN; I=MD

Someone will be able to make a Human Factors case for going to
the X400 scheme, but that will only demonstrate flaws in the
current state of Human Factors theory, not in the Internet
scheme.  I have to moderate between systems using X400 and
systems using domain addressing and the error rate in use
of the former is higher than the latter (anecdote being the
singular of data).

X400 seems incapable of informing the sender that the mail was not
delivered, but I'm not sure if thats a flaw in X400 or in the
implementation.

    --Brad Sherman

X400:     s=b.sherman/ou=s27a/prmd=usda.fs.x400b/admd=telemail/c=us
Internet: bksherman@lbl.gov
From: dspittm@sdrc.COM (Jon Pittman)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: process-based user interfaces
Date: 30 Jul 92 21:16:47 GMT
Organization: SDRC, Cincinnati

From article <1992Jul30.153247.14627@cs.tu-berlin.de>, by jutta@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Jutta Degener):
> dspittm@sdrc.COM (Jon Pittman) writes:
>> Most of the direct manipulation user interfaces currently in
>> vogue (Mac, Windows, Motif, ...) all work very well for applications
>> where you can do things in a "random access" fashion. Does anyone
>> have any experience using them effectively for "process" or
>> "procedure" oriented applications where someone has to do something
>> step-by-step??
> 
> Implementing direct manipulation often means turning the latter into
> the former.  Step-by-step procedures stem from a programmer's way of
> thinking in algorithms; they are not the way most people like to do tasks.
> 
> If your application is simply programmed in a way that needs one
> stage to be completed before entering the next one, adding windows
> and buttons won't buy you a direct manipulation interface.  That's
> an illness many retroGUIfied applications suffer from.
> 
> --Jutta

Hi Jutta -- thanks for your comments. I agree 100% with you. However, the
situation I was describing is a process or procedure based task, not an
application. The application I work on is an engineering application which
requires certain things be done in certain order. For example, the user
must do something like:              

 define the geometry of an engine component
 specify loads on that component
 analize the stress in the component
 display the results of the analysis
 ... and so on

Inside each of these tasks there are many sequential dependencies. Anyway,
I agree with your statements and applications such as ours do have some
unnecessary step-by-step thinking in them but my question is really 
about what can be done when the task structure is inherently procedural...



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon H. Pittman					jon.pittman@sdrc.com
Structural Dynamics Research Corporation
2000 Eastman Drive		
Milford, OH 45150
USA
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Macs cost too much
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 92 13:55:40 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

rwk@crl.dec.com (Bob Kerns) writes:
>    > 2)  Combined menu size.  Menubars at the top have to contain menu items
>    >     for all active windows, as well as operations global to all the acti
>    >     windows.
> 
>    Er, no they don't.  On the Macintosh, the menu bar contains menu items onl
>    for the currently active window, plus the Apple menu and the task-switchin
>    menu.
> 
> Oh yes they do.  I chose my wording carefully, but I still didn't
> manage to make it clear.  The key words are *active* and *at the same
> time*.  Note my definition of "active" below.  Thus I am not talking about
> Mac window's which are not front;  in Mac terms, this boils down to
> "subwindows" since the Mac.  Another term sometimes used is "panes".

That's what confused me.  If you'd said "Menu bars at the top have to contain
menu items for all active sub-windows of the currently active window" I'd
have known what you were talking about.

But it still isn't true.  The Hypercard toolbox is an active sub-window of the
active Hypercard window, and choosing tools from it alters the menu
structure.  So the menu doesn't need to hold the items for all the tools in
the toolbox.

As it happens, I think that's a bad design decision (for reasons I've
explained in comp.human-factors).

>    > 3)  The effects of the additional time required to indicate the window o
>    >     it is desired to operate, where there may be more than one suitable 
> 
>    Again, this is not a problem on the Mac.  The window on which the menu is
>    desired to operate must by definition be the active window.
> 
> Absolutely wrong, even taking into account your skipping over my
> definition of "active window".  The problem does relate to the Mac,
> because when you select a Macintosh window, you have to make the
> menu items for *everything* in that window active.

Not true.  See Hypercard for a counter-example.  The menu items for bitmap
manipulation are only there if you've clicked on a bitmap manipulation tool
in the tool sub-window.

> The problem is just that you didn't read my definitions, and have
> become so Mac-centric that you couldn't understand anything that
> was worded in a way that tried hard NOT to be Mac-centric.

It's nothing to do with being "Mac-centric".  I've also read the IBM SAA CUA
UI guidelines book and the Sun OpenLook UI guidelines book.  Your terminology
was just confusing.


mathew
-- 
Buddy, can you spare a paradigm?
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: process-based user interfaces
Date: 31 Jul 1992 19:15:11 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com

In article <1911@sdrc.COM> dspittm@sdrc.COM (Jon Pittman) writes:
>Hi Jutta -- thanks for your comments. I agree 100% with you. However, the
>situation I was describing is a process or procedure based task, not an
>application. The application I work on is an engineering application which
>requires certain things be done in certain order. For example, the user
>must do something like:              
>
> define the geometry of an engine component
> specify loads on that component

These can be done by having the application display modal dialogues,
which allow the user to specify these parameters (perhaps doing so
graphically).  The "Loads" dialogue wouldn't be displayed until the user
clicks "OK" in the "Geometry" dialogue.

> analize the stress in the component
> display the results of the analysis

The *user* does these?  Isn't it usually the computer's job to analyze and
display stuff? :-)

>Inside each of these tasks there are many sequential dependencies. Anyway,
>I agree with your statements and applications such as ours do have some
>unnecessary step-by-step thinking in them but my question is really 
>about what can be done when the task structure is inherently procedural...

Other than the above idea of sequentially displaying dialogues, you can
also do it in a menu system by greying out all the operations that aren't
appropriate for the current state of the procedure.

Which style is appropriate probably depends on the application.  The
sequential dialogues are probably best when there really is just one
appropriate procedure at each step in the process.  But if there's some
amount of flexibility then it's probably better to make all the choices
available.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: andreag@cco.caltech.edu (Andrea Lynne Gallagher)
Subject: Re: How do you handle navigation?
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 20:03:47 GMT


Because I've had a number of requests for full references,
and because I want to abjectly and publicly apologize for 
getting George Furnas' name wrong, I decided to post some more
information.

I suggested that giving users a good idea of their location
in a hierarchies helps a lot in letting them find things in
that hierarchy.  I referred to our own interface design and to
work by Furnas.

This is the entry from the HCI Bibliography for the seminal paper 
on fisheye views.  The CHI'86 proceedings have a number of excellent
papers on "Visualizing Complex Information Spaces", and I recommend
looking through the whole issue.

-----
%T Generalized Fisheye Views
%S Visualizing Complex Information Spaces
%A George W. Furnas
%B Proceedings of ACM CHI'86 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
%D 1986
%P 16-23
%* (c) Copyright 1986 Association for Computing Machinery
%X In many contexts, humans often represent their own "neighborhood" in great
detail, yet only major landmarks further away.  This suggests that such views
("fisheye views") might be useful for the computer display of large information
structures like programs, data bases, online text, etc.  This paper explores
fisheye views presenting, in turn, naturalistic studies, a general formalism, a
specific instantiation, a resulting computer program, example displays and an
evaluation.
--------

(By the way, Gary Perlman's HCI Bibliography has abstracts and contents
for most of the publications in the field.  An excellent resource.
Files for each book and journal issue are available by anonymous
ftp on archive.cis.ohio-state.edu in the pub/hcibib/ directory.
The above entry was pulled from CHI86.bib.  Check it out!  :-)  )



Here are the full references for our relevant papers.  The
first describes an early interface, and the second describes
a later, more "fisheye" version.
----
Christine L. Borgman, Andrea L. Gallagher, David Krieger
and James Bower(1990). "Children's Use of an Interactive Catalog
of Science Materials", Proceedings of 53rd Annual Meeting of
the American Society for Information Science, Vol 27, p55.

Christine L. Borgman, Andrea L. Gallagher, Virginia A. Walter
and Jason B. Rosenberg (1991). "The Science Library Catalog:
Comparison of Children's Searching Behavior in a Direct Manipulation
and a Keyword Search System", Proceedings of 54th Annual Meeting of
the American Society for Information Science, Vol 28.
-----


Hope this helps,
Andrea Gallagher




-- 
Andrea L. Gallagher  andreag@tybalt.caltech.edu	  (818)797-8370
_______________________________________________________________
   	 Oh! Empiricism! Is THAT all you have to offer?!
        	    -Rosencrantz (or Gildenstern)
From: lhp@daimi.aau.dk (Lasse Hiller|e Petersen)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Macs cost too much
Date: 22 Jul 92 01:01:26 GMT
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark

Pardon the intrusion but...

mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) writes:
>rwk@crl.dec.com (Bob Kerns) writes:
[deleted]
>But it still isn't true.  The Hypercard toolbox is an active sub-window of the
>active Hypercard window, and choosing tools from it alters the menu
>structure.  So the menu doesn't need to hold the items for all the tools in
>the toolbox.
(I'm not sure I agree that the floating tools palette is a subwindow of
the active window, but it does not matter to my point.)
[more deleted]
>Not true.  See Hypercard for a counter-example.  The menu items for bitmap
>manipulation are only there if you've clicked on a bitmap manipulation tool
>in the tool sub-window.

My point is that when arguing about interface matters on the Mac, one must
be careful about the examples one uses to support arguments.
(Another *bad* example to use would be MS Word)

You are mistaking the way HyperCard uses menus with what could ordinarily be
referred to as "the Macintosh Interface". The Macintosh interface is defined
by Apples _Human Interface Guidelines_ in the book by that name, and by
corresponding chapters in _Inside Macintosh_. HyperCard breaks many of
these guidelines, to an extent that one might say the Mac has two interface
standards: "Mac" and "HyperCard".

Indeed, HyperCard flickers menus on and off depending on the situation.
However, already in Inside Mac, Vol. I it was stated that:
"The names of the menus do not change, except when the user accesses a
desk accessory that uses different menus.
  Only menu titles appear in the menu bar. If all if the commands in a
menu are currently disabled, (that is, the user can't choose them), the
menu title should be dimmed (drawn in gray). Then user can pull down
the menu to see the commands, but can't choose any of them." (pI-51)
(Whereas in HyperCard, the menu would disappear, although not consistently.
Note that HC does _not_ dim the Font and Style titles, although no
edit-field is active, and all fonts and styles are disabled.)

For ordinary applications, it is in fact true that the menu bar should
reflect all possible menu choices, that are or could become active for
the application.

The MacApp framework achieves this behaviour by disabling all menus each
time it reenters the event loop, and then allowing all event-handlers
to activate the menus they handle.

The following I'm not 100% sure of, but I believe it is considered good
style if the only menus that change in an application are those where
the actual choices change (for instance a 'Windows' to select a given
window) or the edit menu, for instance changing the generic 'Cut' to
'Cut object' in an object-oriented drawing application, or changing 'Undo'
to 'Undo cut' or 'Redo cut', when the appropriate undoable command has
been issued. (Redo being Undo of Undo.)

Please forgive me, _I_ *am* slightly Mac-centric :-)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: u8023544@cc.nctu.edu.tw ()
Subject: A UIMS for disabled people
Organization: National Chiao Tung University
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 09:20:01 GMT

Hi *.*,
  I am designing a UIMS supporting for disabled people. Do you think 
it is worth as my master thesis. Could you give me suggestions or
relative papers about the topic? I do need your help.

  Thanks very much in advance.

Simon Ma  at National Chiao-Tung University
From: richard@adpgate.UUCP ( ADP OPuS)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Information Mapping
Date: 24 Jul 92 21:20:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: outland.1465
Distribution: usa
Organization: ADP Dealer Services R&D, Portland, OR

X9.B19@forsythe.stanford.edu (John Atwood) writes:
: 
: When I hear _information mapping_, I think of a
: company that uses that name for their methods of tech writing.
: I assume you don't mean them.  Could someone explain what
: is meant by the term _info mapping_?

     Information Mapping is a trademarked name owned by an organization
   called Information Mapping, Inc. and headed up by Robert E. Horn, 
   who is mentioned previously in this thread as the author of Mapping
   Hypertext.

     Basically it is a concept whereby information is segmented into 
   different component groups and presented to a reader in compart-
   mentalized form.  The theory is that this makes it easier for 
   readers to locate information, thus the term *mapping*. 

     Horn calls these component groups Information Types. The different
   types are: Procedures, Processes, Structures, Concepts, Facts,
   Classifications and Principles.  So for a certain topic, if you 
   know that you want information about Processes, for instance, you 
   need not muck through all of the other types to find it.

     Information Mapping also gets into methods of implementing 
   conciseness through a variety of grouping & organizational prin-
   ciples.  If you're interested in tech writing & hypertext, I 
   think you should look it over.
Xref: sparky comp.human-factors:1690 comp.groupware:630
Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 1992 18:20:39 EDT
From: <BWARREN@auvm.american.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors,comp.groupware,
Subject:        changing organizational roles

I am studying the use of groupware in organizations.  PLease send me a message
if you have any information on the following:
Groupware is changing the structure of businesses and the relationship
between management and subordinates.  Work will be performed by task-
focused teams rather than individuals.  I am interested in how this will
impact management and where the new breed of managers is supposed to come
from.  If you can help, please send message.
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: ematias@dgp.toronto.edu (Edgar Matias)
Subject: Re: Keyboards for one-handed typing
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Date: 23 Jul 92 00:28:53 GMT


My company manufactures/sells software that allows trained touch-typists
to touch-type with one hand.  It is designed in such a way that 2-handed
typists don't have to retrain (much) to be able type on it.  Note that
it is NOT a 1-finger sticky keys utility.  Here's how it works:

When you hold down the spacebar, it remaps the keyboard in a mirror image
in the same way that your left and right hands are mirror images of each
other.

For example, say you wanted to type the letter K with your left hand.
The letter K is normally typed with the MIDDLE FINGER of the RIGHT HAND.
To type K with your left hand, you hold down the spacebar and hit the E key
(MIDDLE FINGER of the LEFT HAND).

Regular QWERTY typists can pick it up very quickly.  The Mac version is
reviewed in the current issue of Macworld magazine (August '92, Desktop
Critic column).  The reviewer was able to get up to 20 wpm after about
15 minutes of practice.

We're running an experiment here at U of T to plot the learning curve of
a typist adapting to the system.  So far 2 of the 10 subjects we've tested
have managed to type a 47 wpm block of text after less than 10 hours of 
practice.

The product is called Half-QWERTY.  It is available for Mac and DOS.
There is also a FREE demo available.

Edgar Matias
The Matias Corporation
178 Thistledown Boulevard
Rexdale, Ontario, Canada
M9V 1K1

(416) 749-3124
From: glw@io.uswest.com (Glenn Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: How do you handle navigation?
Date: 23 Jul 92 19:21:33 GMT
Organization: US WEST Communications

We are developing an application that allows a user to select products for a
customer. There are many products and the selection of particular product
may involve making a series of choices. It is a very hierarchical path
to select a particular product. 

We are using Motif as the presentation toolkit and the application must conform 
to the Motif style quide.

We have experimented with cascading menus and nested dialog boxes, but they both
seem very weak graphically, and behaviorally. I am considering a tool
that emulates the file browsing capabilities of the Mac or
Microsoft Windows. Selection of a product would bring up the next
set of choices, and so on. That scenerio seems to fit, can be strong
graphically and behaviorally, and will consume less real estate.

What I would like to know is, how has this been handled before? Is there a 
standard way to handle this type of problem? 



Thanks.


glenn williams
US WEST


"Y'er spookin' the cattle." - Curly
Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Date: Wednesday, 22 Jul 1992 21:12:31 EDT
From: Geru Solomon <GSOLOMO@auvm.american.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: disabilities

i have a speech problem and wonder if anyone has tried cafet the software progr
am and therapy for stuttering?  if you know anything about it would you please
reply. i am planning on going into therapy using this and want to find out how
effective it is.  gerri
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: curzon@trooa.enet.dec.com (Richard Curzon)
Subject: Re: GUI information needed
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: 27 JUL 92 14:21:16    


Looking for pointers to studies that correlate the PRODUCTIVITY resulting
from using a GUI vs CHARACTER CELL systems.  I hear Microsoft may have 
published something, but there must be more around.  

Thanks for any leads... 


                                Richard Curzon, Digital Equipment of Canada
				Toronto
   (from INTERNET)     curzon@trooa.ENET.dec.com 
   (from COMPUSERVE)   71371,2521  OR  >INTERNET:curzon@trooa.ENET.dec.com
Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Date: Saturday, 25 Jul 1992 14:15:42 EDT
From: Geru Solomon <GSOLOMO@auvm.american.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject:    Have you ever used groupware?

I need a reply from someone who has experience using groupware.  What are your
experiences using groupware.  Do you think it has any advantages over face-to-f
ace meetings. What type of groupware software did you use?  I am doing this for
 a graduate class project, so any information you give me will be appreciated.
Thanks, Gerri
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: fish@hal.com (Ken Fischer)
Subject: Does a FAQ document exist?
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 16:42:23 GMT

Is there a FAQ list/document for this newsgroup??

-- 
- Ken Fischer  ( fish@hal.com, W:(512)794-2855, Austin, TX. )
                         HAL Computer Systems, Inc.