HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Mouse-warping considered harmful
From: f67700241@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin)
Date: 20 Nov 92 18:07:06 MST
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
Nntp-Posting-User: f67700241

I find this discussion of mouse warping interesting.  There are two
examples of it I can think of, and both of them are in the DOS world.
I don't know of any MS Windows programs that do this.  Perhaps you
serious HF people can expand on my examples.

WP 5.1 for DOS has a pull-down menu system you can activate by
clicking the right mouse button.  You can use Setup to select
"Assisted Mouse Pointer Movement" i.e. mouse warping.  With AMPM
activated, WP will move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen
for you when you click the right button.

I don't like this feature, because when I use the mouse I have it 
around the center of the screen, and it's a real drag to move the
mouse cursor back to where it was in my text.  If you're in the 
middle of selecting text with the mouse, it's even worse.  In fact,
I don't even use the WP mouse features much.

On the other side of the fence is a shareware VGA mahjongg-type
game called Solitile.  In normal game play you pick up tiles in
the center of the screen, but to get to special features you 
have to move to the "buttons" along the top, left side, or bottom
of the screen and click on them.  The program then pops up a dialog
box in the center of the screen, and magically warps your mouse to 
the first button in the dialog box.

For some reason I find this setup a lot easier to handle.  If I want
to cancel the dialog box, my mouse is left in the center of the game
board ready to pick up new tiles.  And if I'm presented with a file
list, I'm ready to scroll up and down it with a minimum of mouse
jockeying.  This AMPM was easy to learn, I think.
--
Greg "Mockingbird" Franklin      Interviewer: "Sir, how do you spell relief?"
f67700241@ccit.arizona.edu               Dan: "R-O-L-A-I-D-S-E."

"[George Bush is] the most ruthless white man in the history of the planet."
	-- Richard Ben Cramer, author of _What It Takes_
"The President scores much better than Bill Clinton."
	-- Dan, comparing Bush's record of marital infidelity to Clinton's
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: jxm@engin.umich.edu (John Murray)
Subject: Re: should computers be the sole decision makers
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 08:47:38 EST
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <Bxsyny.ICq@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> stevem@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Steve McGowan (RA)) writes:
>In article <bergland.14.721900596@edb.uib.no> bergland@edb.uib.no (Magne Bergland) writes:
>>
>>The question is wrong! Computers _can't_ be sole decision makers. If 
>>a program "makes a decision" then really the person who designs the program 
>>makes the decision. Thus letting the computer "make the decision" really 
>>means relegating the power of decision to system designers.
>
>	I think this ties in with an old legal case (which I can't remember
>	the outcome of), which centered along the use of expert systems as
>	information providers/decision support tools.
>
>	The case, as vague as it is in my mind, concerned a prosecution by
>	a company which took the advice generated from an expert system.
>	Ultimately, it turned out this information was incorrect, and cost
>	the company dearly.
 
Can anyone shed a bit more light on this case? I'd much appreciate
a reference to the details of the case. Even an indication of where
the case was held would be useful, since Steve is posting from Scotland.
 
Tnx,

John Murray
Univ. of Michigan
From: mlindholm@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Scientific support for GUIs?
Date: 17 Nov 92 08:25:43 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Why haven't I ever seen an article, where the graphical (destop
metaphor) and command-line user interfaces had been compared?  
In other words, is there any objective support to Apple's claims, 
that the Macintosh interface is easier to learn and that people 
are more productive when using Macintoshes?

No personal opinions, please.  I want references.

Thanks in advance. 

Mikko Lindholm
mlindholm@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: max@alias.com (Max Stevens-Guille)
Subject: prolonged use of HDTV monitors
Keywords: HDTV computer 
Reply-To: max@alias.com (Max Stevens-Guille)
Organization: Alias Research, Inc. Toronto Canada
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 14:34:19 GMT

I was browsing through a magazine called "Advanced Imaging" the other
day 1. In it, they had a comparison of modern display technology.
Included, was a comparison of 2k by 2k monitors with HDTV (1920 x 1035). As the computer graphics industry continues its quest for better display
technology, the HDTV displays will inevitably become common place.

I am rather concerned about the amount of radiation that
these tubes put out.  In terms of energy, a garden variety colour computer monitor puts out ~25 ft/lumens.  This suits the nominal 18"-30"
viewing distance.  HDTVs, however, are designed to be viewed from 5-10 ft
away, and consequently pump out ~150 ft/lumens.

Does anyone have any data on what the long term effects of using
an HDTV monitor for close-up interactive computer type work?

Thanks in advance,
	Max

Reference:

1. Advanced Imaging, Sept 1992, pp 16-22, PTN Publishing Co., Melville, 
N.Y. 11747

-- 
Max Stevens-Guille      Research & Development      __
Alias Research Inc.     110 Richmond St. East,     /
Toronto, Ontario,       CANADA  M5C 1P1           /         Alias 
max@alias.com                                    /   \      Research
vox: (416) 362-9181     fax: (416) 362-0630     /     \_    Incorporated
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
From: alanb@sdl.mdcbbs.com (Alan Braggins)
Date: 19 Nov 92 17:53:13 GMT
Followup-To: comp.human-factors
Organization: Shape Data (Division of EDS), Cambridge UK
In-reply-to: mattf@cac.washington.edu's message of 18 Nov 92 22:28:50 GMT

>>>>> On 18 Nov 92 22:28:50 GMT, mattf@cac.washington.edu (Matthew Freedman) said:
> Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov18.222850.2695

> Has anyone ever really studied whether users, especially absolutely
> naive, never touched a mouse in their life users, find windowing
> systems more comprehensible when the windows raise and get focus when
> the mouse merely points at them, vs. systems where you need to
> actually click a button to raise/focus a window?

Raise and focus are not and should not be the same thing. One of the most
irritating features of the Apollo window system was its inability to give
focus to a window without raising it.
I do recognize this might be different on a system designed for naive users.
As for pointer focus vs. click focus, this seems to be largely a matter of
personal preference - since all the systems I use allow both options, I've
never really worried about it.
My _guess_ would be that a naive user moving the mouse about and seeing
changes in border colour etc. would guess that the window was being
selected, but not necessarily guess that clicking would select if nothing
happened when the mouse was first moved. But I don't remember going through
a learning phase when I first encountered a mouse.
(OTOH it did take a while to get used to checking before using someone elses
system, so there is some advantage to consistency - thats fine so long as
everyone is consistent with my preference...)
--
     Alan Braggins, alanb@sdl.mdcbbs.com, abraggins@cix.compulink.co.uk
Shape Data - A division of EDS-Scicon Limited.   Cambridge, UK +44-223-316673
   "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
 "My employer does not necessarily share my views - but I'm working on it."
From: bernst@husc10.harvard.edu (Noam Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Seperation of Church and Elevators
Date: 22 Nov 92 00:18:16 GMT

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

>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?

Don't know about Arabic (4 years of school Arabic vanished within two years
of moving to the US during 7th grade).  At least in Hebrew, mathematical
expressions are written the same as in English.  The numerals in Arabic, I
do remember, are similar, but not identical.  The ones used in Hebrew are
the same as English, though.

>	--Rick.

						    Noam
						    noamb@das.harvard.edu
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: MAC eject disk into trash issue
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 14:03:52 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

atwoodj@xanth.CS.ORST.EDU (John Atwood) writes:
> A fairly well known user interface problem how, on an Apple Macintosh,to ejec

I never drag disks to the trash to eject them.  I type %Y to put them away,
or %E to eject them temporarily.  I can't even remember what the menu
commands are called any more... "Put away" and "Eject disk"?

Much easier than dragging icons around and fiddling with aliases.


mathew
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: intercultural scientific CMC
From: <KXK120@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 00:50:02 EST
Organization: Penn State University


     I'm very much interested in computer-mediated communication
in international/intercultural teamwork. I'm planning to write
an M.A.thesis on international scientific collaboration utilizing
CMC, specifically email.

     If you know any journals or books which deal with such topics
(or have any other suggestions), please could you let me know?

Thanks in advance.

Kayoko Katsuya-Corbet
kxk120@psuvm.psu.edu
Speech Communication Dept.
Pennsylvania State Univ.
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: hoffberg@medusa.aps.anl.gov (Mike G. Hoffberg)
Subject: Icons for network information
Organization: Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago Illinois
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 20:50:53 GMT


Where would I find a list of the icons used to indicate computer
network information.

For instance what would I draw if I wanted to indicate:
	a router?
	an Ethernet network?
	a fiber network?
	a server?
	a workstation?

	etc...

I believe that such icons must exist as do standard electrical parts
used on schematic drawings.

MIKE
-- 
Michael Hoffberg               /.\ <Build APS>   ~\   /~  "Jeez, am I the
hoffberg@phebos.aps.anl.gov   // \\ Argonne        \ /     only one who paid
hoffberg@anlaps.aps.anl.gov  //_O_\\ National       |      full price?" F.F.
                            /__| |__\ Lab   Obbyn! _|_ Obbyn!
From: smith@ctron.com (Lawrence C Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: robots in our bodies
Date: 17 Nov 92 15:19:01 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Nov16.223231.11974@bsu-ucs>, 00jhritter@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu writes:
>I have been hearing a lot lately about the possibly that some day robots will
>become so small that they could be injected into the blood stream to fight  
>diseases or clean out clogged artieries.  Does any think this is possible?
>Does any think this could lead to mind control?  How would this effect our
>future?  Please reply, my grade depends on it!!

What a bizarre post.  If your _grade_ depends on it, run, don't walk, to
your nearest purveyor of quality reading material and obtain the tome:
"Engines of Creation" by Eric Drexler.  it contains a marvelous summary
of nano-technology, including the microbots to which you refer.  Such
devices would be most useful as medical aids, but for "mind-control" they
would be quite useless.  It might be possible to program them to cause
unendurable pain if you disobey orders, but we have compulsion and torture
already - even by remote control, so I expect that risk is pretty minimal.
You might try starting this thread in comp.risks for some real analysis.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com)  No, I don't speak for Cabletron.  Need you ask?
-
Liberty is not the freedom to do whatever we want,
it is the freedom to do whatever we are able.
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: asper@sbctri.sbc.com (Alan E. Asper)
Subject: Re: MIS/IS MANAGER problems with employees?
Organization: Southwestern Bell Technology Resources, St.Louis, MO
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:00:39 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.110920.12068@bsu-ucs> 00twgivens@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu writes:
>soon-to-graduate senior at Ball State majoring in MIS/CS, are there any 
>problems with how much knowledge these end-users have?  Do they know too much? 
>Are employees becoming too literate for the MIS/IS manager to control???
>
>Has anyone encountered problems with this? (i.e.  employees deleting files,
>security problems with employees, employees using their own software instead of
>company requested software, editing of bat, exec files, etc.)

Are you talking about deliberate sabotage, or possibly-harmful tinkering, or
honest-but-destructive mistakes? First find out why your users are committing
the destructive acts, then design the system to reduce them. The destructive
acts, not the users. 

Alan
From: 00twgivens@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: MIS/IS MANAGER problems with employees?
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:09:20 GMT
Organization: Ball State University, Muncie, In - Univ. Computing Svc's


	With all of the new and advancing technologies in the area of MIS/IS,
users are becoming more and more fimiliar and educated in these areas.  As a
soon-to-graduate senior at Ball State majoring in MIS/CS, are there any 
problems with how much knowledge these end-users have?  Do they know too much? 
Are employees becoming too literate for the MIS/IS manager to control???

Has anyone encountered problems with this? (i.e.  employees deleting files,
security problems with employees, employees using their own software instead of
company requested software, editing of bat, exec files, etc.)
Organization: Junior, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors,comp.windows.x
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 15:36:46 -0500 
From: "Eric A. Anderson" <eanders+@CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
	<1992Nov21.054929.26866@wam.umd.edu>

dododge@wam.umd.edu (David O. Dodge) writes:
[click to raise vs point to raise]
I vastly prefer having to perform some operation to make my windows
raise.  It would drive me nuts having them constantly changing which
one is on top.  I have set up the system I work on though so that I
can raise the window from anywhere inside it.
[ focus follows pointer vs click to focus ]
Click to focus I find generally obnoxious.  I'd rather just put the
cursor in the window to have it do something.  Furthermore, click to
focus introduces the complication of when you click on an unfocused
window, do you both give focus to it and also send the click through?
I haven't seen an acceptable solution to this problem.
[pointer obscuring the text in your window]
This is a problem, but there's this wonderful program which fixes the
problem entirely.  unclutter, a simple program that makes your cursor
disappear if you haven't moved it in some period of time.  I didn't
write it, it's available from export.lcs.mit.edu, it's probably one of
the most useful programs I've seen.
          -Eric 
*********************************************************
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
           -The Nine Billion Names of God
"Yes, you're very smart.  Shut up."
           -In "The Princess Bride"
*********************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Seperation of Church and Elevators
From: bassi@cs.unibo.it (Bruno Bassi)
Date: 19 Nov 92 16:33:24 +0100
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Bologna, Italy

In article <1992Nov14.213444.25253@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> sruland@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Shane F Ruland) writes:
>however you rarely see them used, but on realy old Otis
>elevators 1940's (?) And the reasoning was that going up
>was a good thing (i.e. Heaven) and going down was a bad
>thing (i.e. red=hell).  The buttons usually carried the
>redundant colored lights in addition to the up and down
>arrows.

The main issue about this whole thing seems to me the following:
No matter how arbitrary the coding between an interface representation
or action and the thing it represents or the action it stands for,
you can *always* with some effort find some sort of "explanation" or 
mnemonic trick for it.
But: besides the one you find, there may be other interpretations that
come quite naturally to other people's minds, and that are misleading.
If we are not to confuse the user, we have to look for a coding
that has the fewer number of possible interpretations associated to it.

I want to submit an example, from interfaces as supposedly "good" as
Mac and Windows. Take a case in which I have to enter a number as a
parameter, e.g. to set icons spacing in Windows Control Panel. I get a
small box with the default value, and on one side of it there are two 
arrows pointing up and down. Now the idea is "push the up arrow to increment
the number (to get a higher one), and the down arrow to decrement it. 
Folks, I ALWAYS GET IT WRONG. I do exactly the opposite, and I just
can't learn it the right way, and no use in RTFM.
I understand that, presented with an up-down axis (suggested by the
arrows), I tend to imagine natural numbers disposed in a vertical row,
like this:

   0
   1
   2
   3
   .
   .

Try to see it this way, and you will understand how an "up" arrow could
naturally yeald a smaller number, and conversely for the "down" one.

The problem is that there are two possible interpretations of the
"up/down" category. Is this kind of representation wrong? Well, yes, but
I guess you could say that *only* if you are able to find a better one.
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?
Greetings, Bruno
(bassi@cs.unibo.it)
-- 

                                                ceci n'est pas un .sig virus
From: paf@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU (Paul Fritze)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Interesting Elevator HF error:
Date: 20 Nov 1992 15:19:17 +1100
Organization: Chemistry Department, Melbourne University, AUS.
NNTP-Posting-Host: ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au

In article <1992Nov12.185243.8925@chesapeake.ads.com> jclose@chesapeake.ads.com (Jeff Close) writes:
>I thought I'd share an interesting desgin error with everyone.  The elevators
>in our building have two lights to indicate which direction an elevator is
>going when it appears.  Unlike most, which have some form of obvious up-down
>indicator (either a lighted arrow or two lights arranged vertically), this...

Some time ago I was waiting for a lift with a group of increasingly frustrated
people and overheard the comment from a young girl that "the doors won't
open!". That set me thinking that perhaps not everyone lives with the
assumption that lifts go up & down, perhaps this is a myth perpetuated by
architects & engineers through the use of little red & green lights.
Unfortunately I can't remember the shape or size of the indicators in this
instance.
Another observation is that people seem to prefer illuminated numbers to
indicate lift progress. This is similar to the computer interface principle of
providing a % complete indicator for making lengthy processes seem more
bearable.
I am also reminded of the story of the lift company who managed to satisfy
complaints that their lifts were slow by installing mirrors by the lift doors.

Maybe there are a few ideas for interface designers here...

-- 
Paul Fritze - Instructional Designer, School of Chemistry
              Melbourne Uni, Parkville 3052, Australia
              Paul_Fritze.Chemistry@muwayf.unimelb.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
From: jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz)
Subject: Re: Click to Raise Windows vs. Point to Raise
Organization: Mount Holyoke College
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 20:00:16 GMT

In article <1ef01cINNpo4@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU> atwoodj@CS.ORST.EDU (John Atwood) writes:
>What's _mouse warping_?

A horrible crime committed chiefly by Open Look these days... "mouse
warping" is when the mouse pointer on the screen transcends space-time
in ways totally unrelated to the position/motion of the physical mouse
on your desk.  IMHO this is a really, really, really terrible thing
to do... it completely breaks the whole concept of continuous user
control over the UI.  Yes, it's very convenient when the pointer is
already over the default button when alert boxes pop up on the screen,
but I think such convenience can be provided in any number of far less
harmful ways... default buttons, mouse-button bindings, etc.  I really
cannot imagine what all the "UI experts" who allegedly designed Open
Look were thinking when they committed this travesty.

When I click the mouse on a scroll-arrow in Open Look and the pointer
starts to move without my moving the mouse the muscles in my forearm
start to twitch!  I swear!

On the click-to-focus vs. point-to-focus question:  I personally like
being able to just point to focus, and I like being able to focus
without raising.  BUT I think that for most novice users it is 
easier to click-to-raise-and-focus because it represents a simpler
model of how the virtual desktop behaves... to work with a document
on your virtual desk dig it out from under all the other ones and
put it on top.  Then start writing.  As users get more advanced they
might want to be able to work more quickly and won't mind the extra
complexity... then let them write on the corners of documents that
stick under from under stuff, i.e. focus-without-raise.

This makes sense even aside from the fact that most users have a
click-to-focus-and-raise expectation from the Macintosh and MS
Windows.  The power of such expectations is a very compelling argument
for click-to-focus-and-raise in and of itself, at least for novice
users in an environment where you don't want users to have to
acquire much in the way of new concepts before they can start using
your system.  So take advantage of concepts they users might already
have a grasp on and make your GUI follow as many Mac & MS windows
conceptes as possible.

--
Jurgen Botz                  |   Internet: JBotz@mtholyoke.edu
Academic Systems Consultant  |     Bitnet: JBotz@mhc.bitnet
Mount Holyoke College        |      Voice: (US) 413-538-2375 (daytime)
South Hadley, MA, USA        | Snail Mail: J. Botz, 01075-0629

Newsgroups: comp.human-factors