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Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:22:00 MDT
              <GIS-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         WATERS@UNCAMULT.BITNET
Subject:      A little more on the GIS Interface debate

A while back I wrote the following article for GIS World (vol. 4,
number 4 June 1991). It seems to conform with Andy Bouffard's
(ESRI) comments that we need GIS interfaces that reflect the
sophistication of the user and Martin Feuchtwanger's call
for flexibility in previous submissions to the Interface debate.
The literature on SUSI's is not all euphoric because of the
difficulty of development and the ongoing computational overhead.
Anyway John Herring in a more recent submission asked people to
send reprints so the article now follows. I hope the references at
least are useful -- sorry for the bandwidth.
e-mail address:
Waters at uncamult.bitnet

GIS and the Smart User System Interface


Nigel Waters
Department of Geography
University of Calgary


Many GIS are now showing their relatively ancient
roots and are creaking along with command line
interfaces. Some have switched over to menu
systems but few have implemented a full graphical
interface. But perhaps an even more useful
development would be to implement a Smart User
System Interface or SUSI. The SUSI would
overcome many of the problems now facing those
wishing to provide GIS education AND hands-on
experience within a university setting. The problem
is that the students are only available to us for a few
hours a week. During this limited time we want to
get across the principles, concepts and ideas behind
GIS as well as teach the students how to push the
right buttons on a package. The students themselves
may be taking four other courses in a variety of
disciplines. Others have noted this problem and a
lively debate has ensued on some of the forums on
the electronic mail systems. Carstensen (1991)
argued that employers should not demand familiarity
with one particular system when what they really
need "is a good GIS brain, not a trained monkey."

One solution to this problem is the SUSI. SUSI is
not a pipe dream. A prototype system for helping
novice users work with Unix based systems has
been developed and formally tested by Jerrams-
Smith (1989). Information on the types of mistakes
made by novice users was acquired from logs of
their keyboard inputs and by using verbal protocols
which were obtained by asking the users to speak
into tape recorders as they worked. The results were
then analyzed by expert Unix users who had
extensive experience training others to use this
operating system. Nineteen error categories were
detected over a two week period, some occurring in
the first week and others only appearing in the
second. These error categories included: failing to
ask for help; using commands from other operating
systems; typos; inefficient use; misreading
documentation; obscenities (!); guessing; loss of
attention; forgetting file names; documentation errors
(no GIS manufacturer makes these!)

Jerrams-Smith felt that the SUSI had to meet certain
design criteria. Among other things, it should be able
to: detect the more common errors; anticipate new
errors as the user progresses; distinguish between
trivial typos and more serious misconceptions; avoid
offering unwanted help to more experienced users;
detect inefficient commands; prevent repetitive errors;
finally, it should act as a supportive assistant or
buddy (I often have my students work in pairs for
this very reason - if you have three one tends to sit
out and has a free ride). Jerrams-Smith used the
information on errors as the basis for coding over 70
IF-THEN rules which were built into the SUSI
interface using the Franz Lisp language and forward
chaining.

The system was evaluated with an experimental and a
control group of undergraduate novice Unix users. A
Mann-Whitney U test showed that there were no
significant differences between the two groups in
terms of their academic achievement. The
experimental group which used the interface used
Unix more easily and efficiently though the relative
contributions of the remedial instruction offered by
the interface and additional help facilities were
unclear. SUSI users had a slower response time.
This is a major drawback of friendly, supportive or
intelligent interfaces. There is an overhead and this
has been the main defence of those who support non-
intuitive interfaces. Decoupling of this type of
interface may be necessary as an option for those
who feel comfortable with the idiosyncrasies of the
operating system. Jerrams-Smith felt that the
Hawthorne effect whereby the experimental group
tries harder because they know they are testing some
innovative development could not be entirely
discounted.

There are voices of dissent. Storrs (1989) develops a
rather long winded and abstruse philosophical
argument against what he calls UIMS (user interface
management systems). He suggests that these are
better built into existing application programs from
the outset but he appears to be unaware of Jerrams-
Smith's work or the potential for such a sophisticated
interface. Whether such interfaces are part of the GIS
or an optional module they would undoubtedly be a
boon to those of us teaching GIS in a university
environment and GIS manufacturers would do well
to take note of this research on intelligent interface
design.



References

Carstensen, B. 1991. Message #19 posted on the
CTI Center for Geography Electronic Forum. Bitnet
address: CTI@LEICESTER.AC.UK

Jerrams-Smith, J. 1989. An Attempt to Incorporate
Expertise About Users Into an Intelligent Interface
for Unix. International Journal of Man-
Machine Studies, 31, 269-292.

Storrs, G. 1989. A Conceptual Model of Human-
Computer Interaction? Behavior and
Information Technology, 8, 323-344.