Context, User Models and Interface Design
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Date
1988-07-12
Authors
Douglas, Sarah A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Most of the existing analytical descriptions of users characterize their
performance as a function of the cognitive representation of the command sequences of
the computer-based task (e.g. Anderson, Farrell, & Sauers, 1984; Card, Moran &
Newell, 1983; Polson & Kieras, 1985; Norman, 1986). This is represented as goal-oriented
schemata: procedures, plans, or production rules. Thus, the interface
designer need only lay out the command sequences adequate to achieve a set of core tasks
to make predictions about user behavior. These models are by and large restricted to
descriptions of error-free, skilled (expert) performance or error-free learner
subsets of expert knowledge.
Attempts to extend these analytical models to accommodate learner error soon
find themselves coping with the problems of prior knowledge (c.f. Douglas & Moran,
1983; Riley, 1986). That is, elements of performance that are independent of the
computer task representation. Additionally, the existing models make no attempt to
represent the ongoing interactive nature of human behavior at the interface.
This problem of taking into account aspects of human performance at the
interface which are independent of the task representation can be called the context
problem. In the remainder of this paper I will attempt to delineate the nature of this
problem by defining the notion of context, giving examples of context accommodation in
interface design, and discussing the practical and theoretical problems that context
creates for user models and interface design.
Description
6 pages
Keywords
UNIX, syntax, linguistics