From: johnsd2@vccnw05.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 14 Oct 92 23:31:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: rpi.+h2z01+
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

In article <1992Oct14.191227.4217@nwnexus.WA.COM>, kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:
|> In article <6206.2adaf73d@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
|> >In article <1992Oct13.013543.13749@news.cs.indiana.edu>, "Marc VanHeyningen" <mvanheyn@spinner.cs.indiana.edu> writes:
|> >
|> >The computer response might be measured in microseconds (perhaps a few
|> >dozen milliseconds, but the human recognition of that response takes a lot
|> >longer, particularly if you don't know exactly what to expect. Indeed, if
|> >you get an unexpected response, then you sit dumbfounded for a moment trying
|> >to get a handle on the situation.
|> >
|> >Of course, all this mental activity distorts your perception of time. It
|> >doesn't seem to take long, but it eats up enormous amounts of real time.
|> 
|> Actually, I would argue that *perceived* response time is at least as
|> important as *actual* response time.  If the perceived response time is
|> too long, the user can quickly become fatigued and overall efficiency
|> can go down.

That's an interesting thot, but I doubt that a (practiced) mouser
would have this problem. The percieved mousing time isn't that
big. (for me anyway. For what THAT'S worth)

|>  In fact, it's possible that the extra mental effort
|> involved in composing command lines keeps you on your mental toes, so to
|> speak, and helps you perform better in tasks which really require a lot
|> of mental effort.

I never thought of that. Sounds farfeched to me, but who knows.
Perhaps you could come up with a more specific example of this?

|>  Personally, I prefer to be mentally stimulated, and I
|> get a thrill when I come up with a really good command line or script.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... a thrill eh... :)

Needless to say, "don't happen to me!"

|> That thrill keeps me motivated and improves my performance a heck of a
|> lot more than some incremental gain in the time it takes to execute the
|> command with a CLI vs a GUI.

Hmmmm I dunno. Its a lotta little incremental gains, tho.
Im not convinced. (surprised?)

|>  Of course, the opposite may be true for
|> some people.  If you personally like using a GUI and hate the CLI, the
|> fact that you're not enjoying yourself is the thing that's really going
|> to affect your performance.

This is true, although Im not convined its the most important thing
this is certainly a factor.

I also have read in _Tog_on_Interface_ (tired of that book yet?) that
somethinglike 80% of normal people :) do not like keeping track of
mental models of systems, but prefer to see what they are doing.

Of course, it may be that you dont care WHAT a book written by an
(ex) apple employee says. In which case Im just pissing into the
wind about this.
-- 
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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