HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ben@bailey.UUCP (Ben Bailey)
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Date: 22 Nov 92 23:50:34 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Ben Bailey's Home..Tampa Fl.

mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman) writes:
> 
<stuff deleted>
> Before we change the system to match this defacto standard, the
> point-to-raiseists would like to see hard evidence that click-to-raise
> is really better. Does anybody have any? If not, unsubstantiated
> personal opinion would be welcome too.
> 

I wouldn't be too concerned about which is better, but would instead
try to recognize a standard when one exists.  By doing it the way you
are, one way or the other, you are forcing people to have to relearn
a method, either when they come to your system from MS-Windows/Mac,
or when they go to it (as they surely will).  The question then becomes
how many additional people are you going to force to have to go through
the relearning curve?

> Please note that followups have been directed to comp.human-factors.
> 
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> = Matthew M. Freedman                                                 =
> = U. of Washington Information Systems       mattf@cac.washington.edu =
> = 4545 15th Ave. NE; 4th Floor               (206) 543-5593           =
> = Seattle, WA  98105                                                  =
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Ben
--
Ben Bailey                 ben@bailey.uucp -- bailey!ben@uunet.uu.net
12210 Shady Forest Dr.     ben@bailey.tscs.com
Riverview, Fl. 33569       -- The main thing is to keep the main
813-677-5021                  thing the main thing.  Mainly. 
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: 00twgivens@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Employee Training w/ Virtual Reality
Date: 23 Nov 92 14:52:56 GMT
Organization: Ball State University, Muncie, In - Univ. Computing Svc's


	With the advances of Virtual Reality, how big of a part do you
think it will play in the training of employees??  Examples might include
production assembly and other hands on applications.  Would VR save time
by eliminating time spent by trainers teaching employees about their
new tasks?  I'm not saying companies should eliminate the trainers at all,
They will always be needed, but maybe not as much as before with the use of
Virtual Reality.
	I have done some research and have heard pros and cons about this
subject.  Most sources say it would save time and reduce material waste.  The
major obstacle at this time is $$$$$$$.
        A furniture corp. in Japan is already using VR in applications with 
customers enabling them to actually *see* what their room would look like with
different furniture and decoration schemes.  They are able to take a walk
through the room they are looking at using virtual reality, turning their head
looking at the room at every angle.  The major downfall the Japanese corp.
mentioned was the cost.  

	Would the use of VR in the workplace, directed towards
production assembly, be beneficial??  In what other areas might VR be used??


-- Travis
-- Ball State University
  
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: wilde@cs.colorado.edu (Nick Wilde)
Subject: Re: should computers be the sole decision makers
Followup-To: comp.human-factors
Organization: Just enough to get by...
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 05:22:18 GMT

In article <1e8pg5INN9nl@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU>, atwoodj@xanth.CS.ORST.EDU
(John Atwood) wrote:
> 
> 
> I recall a case in Florida where a construction company used Lotus 123 to estimate a job, got the bid, and found that the bid was too low.  They found that the
> employee who used Lotus had incorrect formulas; it was something like she summedrows A thru M, where shee needed A thru N.
> 
> Theyt sued Lotus Dev. Corp, who, I think, was absolved.
> 
> 
> John

If this is for real, and anyone knows more, I'd *love* to get
a reference to this..

-Nick

------------------------------------------------------------------
      Nick Wilde         |  "The truth is rarely pure and
 wilde@cs.colorado.edu   |          never simple"  - Oscar Wilde
Organization: Freshman, MCS general, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 13:33:11 -0500 
From: "Daniel C. Wang" <dw3u+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
	<By6G8n.n2.1@cs.cmu.edu>


hopkins@cs.cmu.edu (Don Hopkins) writes:
> ben@bailey.UUCP (Ben Bailey) writes:
> 
>    mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman) writes:
>    > 
>    <stuff deleted>
>    > Before we change the system to match this defacto standard, the
>    > point-to-raiseists would like to see hard evidence that click-to-raise
>    > is really better. Does anybody have any? If not, unsubstantiated
>    > personal opinion would be welcome too.
> 
>    I wouldn't be too concerned about which is better, but would instead
>    try to recognize a standard when one exists.  By doing it the way you
>    are, one way or the other, you are forcing people to have to relearn
>    a method, either when they come to your system from MS-Windows/Mac,
>    or when they go to it (as they surely will).  The question then becomes
>    how many additional people are you going to force to have to go through
>    the relearning curve?
> 
> I strongly disagree with this attitude.  It certainly does matter
> which one is better.  The "single active window on top" metaphore is
> just not appropriate for a multitasking environment.  But instead you
> want to saddle the users with a bad interface because it's just like
> the first one they were unlucky enough to learn.  You are assuming
> users are too stupid to learn, and complaisant enough to keep using an
> inferior interface.  Since they managed to learn one bad interface in
> the first place, they should be capable of learning a better one, and
> if they use it with any regularity and it improves their performance,
> then their time going through the relearning curve was well invested.


Standardization is a bad idea if it does not allow users to choose
between environments which they themselves are used to.  The ultimate
user intereface is one that is flexible enough to change with  the
users tastes.  There is no best choice in this case.  I frequently use
both the Mac and X windows UI, and think click to focus and pointer to
focus should be done differently on each platform.  When I have a
small screen like the Mac it's important to make sure the focus is on
the current window.  On a large screen and a truely mutlti-tasking
environment pointer to focus makes sense.  I have a personal
PREFERENCE against pointer to raise, but that's my taste.  At least
in the X windows envoriment I can customize either preference.

Here at CMU the default set up for mwm is click to focus, but a large
precentage of users change the X resource to pointer to focus, and an
equally large number of people leave it as it is. And I just switched
to twm, because I like it that way.

My only problem with this is a lot of new users who don't like the
pointer to focus aren't sophistaced enough to change the resource.
There should be a GUI intereface that allows users to easily customize
their setup, something that an UI should allow.  Easy of flexibality
is the foremost important goal for any UI IMHO.
 
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: dvand@ctp.com (Derek Vandivere)
Subject: Re: Voting Booths
Organization: Cambridge Technology Partners
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 13:47:03 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.201332.11366@miki.pictel.com> harling@miki.pictel.com (Dan Harling) writes:
>In article <palmer.721401771@news.larc.nasa.gov> palmer@icat.larc.nasa.gov (Michael T. Palmer) writes:
>>...It seems every year
>>I vote (at the SAME polling place) the machines are different.  One year
>>etc..
>
>By those standards, Massachusetts has a pretty good system.  The ballot
>is printed on a piece of folded paper, and is marked with a pencil, so
>the "controls" are pretty basic: mark an 'X' in the appropriate box,
>which is clearly marked.
>etc...

Actually, voting differs in Massachusetts depending on where you are.  In
Belmont, you get the punch card; in Brighton (where I voted) you get the
voting booth/curtain/lever deal.  Don't assume that's what true for your
precinct is true for the entire state...

			-dersk
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Derek A. Vandivere           |dvand@ctp.com|      This space unintentionally |
|Cambridge Technology Partners|(617)374-8278|            left blank.          |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: rick@sq.sq.com (Rick Innis)
Subject: Re: Seperation of Church and Elevators
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 15:38:44 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.163325.662@cine88.cineca.it>
 bassi@cs.unibo.it (Bruno Bassi) writes:
>For this particular case, I think that a horizontal representation, with
>"left" and "right" arrows, would do much better. I find it natural to think at
>the "right" direction as the direction where things increase (probably
>because texts grow rightwards). And, if you spatialise numbers, you get
>
>     0  1  2  3  4  .  .  .
>
>which also works.
>
>Any comments?
Yes.  If you're writing in Arabic or Hebrew (among others), texts grow to
the left.

This raises another question in my mind: anyone know how these cultures
handle mathematical expressions?  I know the west got its numbering system
from the Arabs, but what about the way we write it?

	--Rick.
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp)
Subject: Re: MAC eject disk into trash issue
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Corp.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 00:48:10 GMT

In article <1e8qdvINNac0@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU> atwoodj@xanth.CS.ORST.EDU (John Atwood) writes:
>A fairly well known user interface problem how, on an Apple Macintosh,to eject a disk, you must drag it to the trash can.  This feels wrong, of course, but stems from the original Mac with 1 diskette drive (You could swap disks but have both still on the desktop, such as a program disk and data disk).  
>
>This problem has entertained me for years, but now that I'm a regular mac user, I decided to do something about it.  I created an alias for the trash can, called _Eject Disk_, clipped the diskette icon (in get info) from a diskette, and pasted it as the alias' icon.
>
>It sits beside the trash, and now I feel much less agita when I'm under dead-
>line.
>
>So, my questions:
>
>Is this a waste of time, or is it worthwhile?
>
It is only a waste of time if you don't learn anything from the experience,
either good or bad.

>If it's worthwhile, is this the best way to do it?
>
Worthwhile?  Hard to say.  However, if you don't like the trash idea
(frankly, I think it is "A" right answer, "A" possible metaphore), you
can always use option-e, or select eject from the file menu.  Both of these
leave the disk "live" on your desktop.

Glenn


-- 
=============================================================================
= Glenn Clapp                          |  gclapp@thunder.sim.es.com         =
= Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp.  |  My opinions are my own, but then  =
= Salt Lake City, Utah  (801) 582-5847 |  that's my opinion.                =
From: jwlr@escher.cc.rochester.edu (James Willer)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Seperation of Church and Elevators
Date: 22 Nov 92 18:30:28 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

brian@dsm.fordham.edu (Brian Downing) writes:

> I was thinking along similar lines with one minor modification.
> Because the simple '+' and '-' may easily be misinterpreted as
> arithmetic operators I would like to suggest the '++' and '--'
> increment and decrement operators from C.  They could easily become
> new international symbols for incrementing by one or decrementing by
> one.  The nice thing is that these could work just like they do C.
> When referring to an ordinal or enumerated data type they would
> represent adding or subtracting by one element of that type. 
> i.e.    ... -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 ... 
>              [ 'a' 'b' 'c'...  (naturally watching for boundaries)

I don't think that would be such a good idea.

Speaking as a fluent user of C, I don't think the general public
is ready for '++' and '--'.  I think it should be intuitively
obvious (that was my math teacher's phrase for "Duh.") that non-users
who see '++' will logically expect it to increment by *2*. (2 '+' signs,
2 increments. Obviously.)

				James Willer
[any opinions above are already registered with the federal government]
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: fish@daacdev1.stx.com
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 15:55:33 GMT

mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman) writes:

>Before we change the system to match this defacto standard, the
>point-to-raiseists would like to see hard evidence that click-to-raise
>is really better. Does anybody have any? If not, unsubstantiated
>personal opinion would be welcome too.

i don't use pcs or macs - but do use X and i prefer point-to-raise
i feel that being able to specify the RaiseDelay in microseconds
is very crucial (400-500 seems to be good)

		fish
--
John R. Vanderpool                INTERNET: fish@daacdev1.stx.com
NASA/GSFC                         VOX: 301-513-1683                
Hughes/STX Corporation            FAX: 301-513-1608
"somehow seems strange and a little bit funny, to wander thirsty in the rain" pr
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: dpbsmith@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith)
Subject: Spatial arrangment of numbers (was Re: Seperation of Church and Elevators)
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 13:50:29 GMT

Personally, I always have trouble with the little arrow spin-bar things
myself.

Your comments remind me of the old observation that, when drawing
diagrams of computer memory addressing maps, it seems to be customary
to put the high addresses at the TOP. When drawing small data structures
and pointers and things, it's customary to put them at the BOTTOM. 
Generally, hardware people tend to think of high addresses as being at the
top, software people think of them as being at the bottom.

I've observed that when posed questions like "Is '2' above or below '3',"
"What color is the letter Z," "does salt taste hotter or colder than
sugar," etc. a remarkable majority of people are able to give very fast,
completely assured answers. Followed immediately by a double-take as they
are perplexed by their own ability to answer such a question.

What's also interesting is that some of these things are not just training.
There are certain features, those "up" or "down" arrows being one of them,
that I have now been using almost daily for eight years, and still get
wrong.

-- 
Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbsmith@world.std.com
From: Scott.Frazee@mechanic.Fidonet.org (Scott Frazee)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Voting Booths
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:58:26 PDT
Organization: Mechanic: The Usenet<->Fidonet Gateway oF St. Pete Florida

For what its worth...
 
I recently came across the "cardboard strip" voting apparatus last time at the polls...and made a fool out of myself.  While I am not Al Einstein, I'm not a mental dummy...  I flipped all of the voting items to the left to slide the cardboard in.  No luck.  I flipped them all to the right.  no luck.  I tried opening them at the middle.  Again, you guessed it.  No luck.
 
By now I'm starting to sweat because my five minutes of voting time is almost up and I HAVEN'T GOTTEN THE DARN THING PUT TOGETHER YET.
 
So, finally, I figured out what had to be the solution.  You apparently hodl the card in your hand and try to figure out what hols go with which question.  also, you use the tip of your fingernail (or tooth, if noone else is looking) to puch outthe little holes.
 
OK...so I only voted for President that way...couldn't have hurted my options any...
 
At that point I decided to "peek" over my shoulder atthe young lady next to me...obviously a well-bred college student who was not about to let me cheat off of her "secret-ballot".  She huched over her ballot like a three year old does his cookies and milk.  I felt like a fool.
 
Well, to make a long story short...ahem...I then did what any normal American male would do.  I read the instructions.
 
What does this story have to do with anything?  First, never overlook the obvious.  Second, many of us in the computer field have forgotten how to "lower the bridge"  -- we of course prefer to raise the water...  Lastly, when trying to peek over a young ladies shoulder in a voting booth ... never ... never ... never ... make "tsk...tsk..tsk" sounds.
 
I'm outta' here, and back to reality in sunny Florida!
 
Scott


--  
Internet: Scott.Frazee@mechanic.Fidonet.org
UUCP:     ...!myrddin!tct!mechanic!Scott.Frazee
Note: Mechanic is a free gateway between USENET & FIdonet.
      For information write to chief@mechanic.fidonet.org
From: jimc@tau-ceti.isc-br.com (Jim Cathey)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
Date: 18 Nov 92 22:58:57 GMT
Organization: ISC - Bunker Ramo, Spokane, WA

In article <1992Nov18.222850.2695@u.washington.edu> mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman) writes:
>Before we change the system to match this defacto standard, the
>point-to-raiseists would like to see hard evidence that click-to-raise
>is really better. Does anybody have any? If not, unsubstantiated
>personal opinion would be welcome too.

Some of the latter coming up!  Us click-to-raisers think of the mosue
pointer as a virtual finger.  Since typically nothing happens with a finger
until you actually touch (i.e. click) something, so should the mouse be.
We don't think much of mouse warping either.

The other way, you have to keep the mouse cursor around at all times (no
obscure on typing start), otherwise you might not realize where you
were, which means it can be in the way.  Also, bumping the mouse with
your elbow by accident is not harmful when the mouse works the ONE TRUE
WAY. 

-- 
+----------------+
! II      CCCCCC !  Jim Cathey
! II  SSSSCC     !  ISC-Bunker Ramo
! II      CC     !  TAF-C8;  Spokane, WA  99220
! IISSSS  CC     !  UUCP: uunet!isc-br!jimc (jimc@isc-br.isc-br.com)
! II      CCCCCC !  (509) 927-5757
+----------------+
			One Design to rule them all; one Design to find them.
			One Design to bring them all and in the darkness bind
			them.  In the land of Mediocrity where the PC's lie.
From: bpirie@bpecomm.pinetree.org (Brian Pirie)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Seperation of Church and Elevators
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 07:57:48 EST
Organization: BP ECOMM Systems, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

> Well, er, yes.  You may find it natural for text to grow rightward, but
> people who read right-to-left (Hebrew, etc.) or bidirectionally (can't
> remember this one) may not find it natural at all.  Up/Down may not be
> the best, but in this case it is a less restricting choice, especially
> when you consider how internationally these products are marketed.
> 
> I agree that there's got to be a better way, and I'm sure someone will
> design something that makes us all feel pretty stupid for not thinking of
> it before.  :-)

Perhaps a more intuitive approach would be to replace the up and down
arrows with the '+' and '-' symbols. While there will always be some
people who will misinterpret any symbolic representation we choose to
use, this is the best solution that I can come up with.

--
Internet : bpirie@bpecomm.pinetree.org (Brian Pirie)
    UUCP : ...!pinetree!bpecomm!bpirie
BP ECOMM Systems, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
From: palmer@icat.larc.nasa.gov (Michael T. Palmer)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Seperation of Church and Elevators
Date: 20 Nov 92 16:16:59 GMT
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: icat.larc.nasa.gov

rick@sq.sq.com (Rick Innis) writes:

>Yes.  If you're writing in Arabic or Hebrew (among others), texts grow to
>the left.

>This raises another question in my mind: anyone know how these cultures
>handle mathematical expressions?  I know the west got its numbering system
>from the Arabs, but what about the way we write it?

Actually, we write numbers the same way as in Arabic... they "grow" to
the left!  You know, larger powers of ten are reached as you read left.
Kinda like "Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie..."

I have to admit, though, that I thought there would be more similarity
between our numerals and Arabic numerals, since I was taught that that's
what we were using (as opposed to Roman numerals).  I'll have to let
someone with more knowledge handle the question about general mathematical
expressions - I haven't seen any of those in Arabic.

-- 
Michael T. Palmer, M/S 152, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681
Voice: 804-864-2044,   FAX: 804-864-7793,   Email: m.t.palmer@larc.nasa.gov
PGP 2.0 Public Key now available -- Consider it an envelope for your e-mail
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: euaneg@eua.ericsson.se (Nils-Erik Gustafsson)
Subject: Q and Z on UK phone keypad
Reply-To: euaneg@eua.ericsson.se
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 16:32:17 GMT

In article 94@uk.ac.uea.sys, lf@uk.ac.uea.sys (Luke Fitzgerald) writes:

> (...)  Phones in the UK no 
>longer have letters (sadly, IMHO); when they did, 7 was PRS, and 0 was OQ.  
>There must have been a reason -- any guesses?

I've been told that O & Q were put on the digit 0
because the three characters look similar, especially 
in bad handwriting.

As for the reason for taking the letters away, I guess
dialling MAY for Mayfair and BIR for Birmingham simply
wasn't possible anymore when the number of subscribers 
(and exchanges) went up. (No pun intended. Seriously.) 

Did companies in the UK ever employ the scheme adopted
in the US, e.g. dialling 800-HOLIDAY for a certain
motel chain? What about the rest of the world?

Inquiring minds...

Nils-Erik Gustafsson

ELLEMTEL Telecom Systems Labs
Box 1505 
S-125 25  ALVSJO
Sweden

Phone +46 8 727 4066
Fax   +46 8 647 8276


Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: hopkins@cs.cmu.edu (Don Hopkins)
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
Originator: hopkins@ECP.GARNET.CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 16:24:18 GMT

ben@bailey.UUCP (Ben Bailey) writes:

   mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman) writes:
   > 
   <stuff deleted>
   > Before we change the system to match this defacto standard, the
   > point-to-raiseists would like to see hard evidence that click-to-raise
   > is really better. Does anybody have any? If not, unsubstantiated
   > personal opinion would be welcome too.

   I wouldn't be too concerned about which is better, but would instead
   try to recognize a standard when one exists.  By doing it the way you
   are, one way or the other, you are forcing people to have to relearn
   a method, either when they come to your system from MS-Windows/Mac,
   or when they go to it (as they surely will).  The question then becomes
   how many additional people are you going to force to have to go through
   the relearning curve?

I strongly disagree with this attitude.  It certainly does matter
which one is better.  The "single active window on top" metaphore is
just not appropriate for a multitasking environment.  But instead you
want to saddle the users with a bad interface because it's just like
the first one they were unlucky enough to learn.  You are assuming
users are too stupid to learn, and complaisant enough to keep using an
inferior interface.  Since they managed to learn one bad interface in
the first place, they should be capable of learning a better one, and
if they use it with any regularity and it improves their performance,
then their time going through the relearning curve was well invested.

	-Don