learning and remembering command names
Natural language would seem to have a strong effect on users' behavior with artificial command languages for interacting with computer systems. We can divide the potential effects of natural language on command languages into: (a) effects on the names of commands, (b) effects on command arguments, and (c) effects on how command-argument units are interrelated (see Black and Sebrechts [2]). Others have investigated arguments (Barnard et al. [1]) and command-argument interrelations (Carroll [4]). In this paper, we describe our research concerning the first of thesenamely, how the names of commands effect the learnability and memorability of the commands. Our investigation uses text-editing as the specific domain. Applied research in human-computer interaction is a subtle affair, with many pitfalls awaiting the unwary researcher. Thus, in addition to presenting research results, we will conclude this paper with some methodological lessons.
learning natural language language effect users behavior computation systems argument paper research present methodology human computer interaction edit text