Thomas H. Martin

The User Interface for Interactive Bibliographic Searching: An Analysis of the Attitudes of Nineteen Information Scientists.

Since little substantiated evidence exists concerning the features that should or should not be included in the man-machine interface of interactive bibliographic search and retrieval (IBSR) systems, an informal survey tapping the opinions of scientists active in this research area was conducted. An analysis of the responses showed a significant level of agreement concerning interface features.

Network information services: The emergence of an industry

The authors discuss the characteristics and benefits of network information services (NIS), which are developing into an important new industry likely to have profound effects on society. Many of the services and possible applications are described. Three scenarios are analysed, in which the future of the industry may be directed by technology, the market, and policy issues. It is concluded that consumers and small businesses are unlikely to be able to achieve sufficient economies through NIS by the end of the century to make much use of the services provided. Large and medium companies, however, will be served by a diversified, multi-network marketplace. The issue of equality of access to information will become of significant public concern.

Redesign of the user interface involving users of a large operational real-time system

Today many large systems exist which have had many designers, have been patched up over the years, were designed for a different type of user than current users, and were once (but no longer) state of the art. The Deep Space Network at Jet Propulsion Laboratory is such a system. In Australia, Spain, and California, operators of the system use inflexible, incompatible routines to route data to Pasadena. Worker motivation and accuracy have to remain high for the system to work. In an attempt to develop redesign guidelines, users were queried regarding their attitudes and difficulties with the system. Interface alternatives were isolated and incorporated into a prototype for assessing the impact of the alternatives on user behavior. The resulting guidelines form a user-oriented, experience-based basis for continuing system evolution.

Formative evaluation: four years later

If you want to find out how slow progress really is, invite a speaker back to report on reserch impacts four years later. It is very hard to say that a tremendous amount of progress has been made. One sign of progress is that many more people are interested in user-friendly systems nowadays than were four years ago.