In a joint case study, IBM and Continental Insurance evaluated the use of a new software development environment (called ITS) to implement a portion of an important Continental Insurance underwriting application. IBM and Continental's data-processing management jointly concluded that ITS (a) is fairly easy to learn and use; (b) substantially reduces application development time; (c) is capable of doing a range of Continental applications; and (d) produces applications that are easier to maintain over the years as usage patterns, insurance laws, and evolving technology require that these applications be changed.

An abstract model of keyboard navigation that is based on real-world requirements is described. The importance of keyboard navigation is discussed, and the current approaches to keyboard navigation are reviewed. Several requirements for a successful model of keyboard navigation, including that keyboard navigation and direct manipulation must coexist in the same application, are described. Examples of successful use of the proposed approach to keyboard navigation in application development are presented.>

Abstract In an empirical case study of software tools, two participants used the ITS style designer's language to implement a general purpose, executable, rule‐based user interface style. This language allows style designers to select, combine and modify rule prototypes in order to construct a rule‐based user interface style. The participants implemented the entire IBM CUA‐2 user interface style, plus nine additional human‐computer interaction techniques, in 5–7 person‐weeks. This is impressive productivity. Typically the time to complete a single CUA‐2 application is measured in person‐years, not person‐weeks. The style implemented here is reusable by any ITS‐implemented application. The achievement reported here shows that about half the work of all ITS‐implemented CUA‐2 applications has been completed in a few person‐weeks. This result demonstrates the power and productivity of the ITS approach and tools. The results of this case study showed that key ‘ready‐mades’ (e.g. named attribute groups) provided in the style designer's toolkit could be used intact, which is important for importing or exporting interaction techniques from one style to another style. The results generalize to other computer‐literate designers who may want to use these tools to create other user interface styles.

This work was done in the context of an interdisciplinary project (called ITS) aimed at producing new tools for computer application development. One motivation is to provide designers with a computer-based toolkit from which they can select human-computer interaction techniques appropriate to various contexts and conditions. These experiments extend our work to touchscreens, and provide a basis of comparison with keyboards and arrow keys. Three human-computer interaction methods, including basic entry and autocompletion, were studied in two simple laboratory scenarios: participants specified dates and airlines reservations. Autocompletion was preferred over, and was faster than, basic entry. The a priori countable, minimum number of touches required to use a particular interaction method is a good predictor of how much time people will need to use that interaction method on a particular task. Similar results were found previously with keyboards and arrow keys.

The ITS architecture separates applications into four layers. The action layer implements back-end application functions. The dialog layer defines the content of the user interface, independent of its style. Content specifies the objects included in each frame of the interface, the flow of control among frames, and what actions are associated with each object. The style rule layer defines the presentation and behavior of a family of interaction techniques. Finally, the style program layer implements primitive toolkit objects that are composed by the rule layer into complete interaction techniques. This paper describes the architecture in detail, compares it with previous User Interface Management systems and toolkits, and describes how ITS is being used to implement the visitor information system for EXPO '92.

Developers of User Interface Management Systems (UIMS) have demonstrated that separating the application from its user interface supports device independence and customization. Interfaces produced in UIMS are typically crafted by designers expert in human factors and graphic arts. Little attention has been paid, however, to capturing the knowledge of such experts so that interfaces might be automatically generated by the application of style rules to additional applications. This paper considers how toolkits and style rules can be structured so that the resulting interfaces take advantage of the best human factors and graphic arts knowledge, and are consistently styled.

Style rule for choice blocks -* * This rule matches when the content tag is choice, * and there are between I and 10 choice items :conditions Source=Choice,MaxItemem=1O,MinItem=l * Start by creating a 2 row, 1 column block.* The block will be used to group a title about a set of

Experiments, including our own (Gould et al., 1982; 1984; 1986), have shown that people read more slowly from CRT displays than from paper. Here we summarize results from a few of our fifteen experiments that have led us to conclude that the explanation centers on the image quality of the CRT characters. Reading speeds equivalent to those on paper were found when the CRT displays contained character fonts that resembled those on paper (rather than dot matrix fonts, for example), had a polarity of dark characters on a light background, were anti-aliased (e.g., contained grey level), and were shown on displays with relatively high resolution (e.g., 1000 x 800). Each of these variables probably contributes something to the improvement, but the trade-offs have not been determined. Other general explanations for the reading speed difference that can be excluded include some inherent defect in CRT technology itself or personal variables such as age, experience, or familiarity at reading from CRT displays.

Handmarkings, e.g., handwritten proofeditors' marks, can be used as direct editing commands to an interactive computer system. Three exploratory experiments studied the potential value of handmarkings for editing text and pictures. Results showed that circles are the most frequently used scoping mark and arrows are the most frequently used operator and target indicators. Experimental comparisons showed that handmarkings have the potential to be faster than keyboards and mice for editing tasks. But their ultimate value will depend upon the style and details of their user interface implementation.

Nine experienced users of electronic spreadsheets each created three spreadsheets. Although participants were quite confident that their spreadsheets were accurate, 44 percent of the spreadsheets contained user-generated programming errors. With regard to the spreadsheet creation process, we found that experienced spreadsheet users spend a large percentage of their time using the cursor keys, primarily for the purpose of moving the cursor around the spreadsheet. Users did not spend a lot of time planning before launching into spreadsheet creation, nor did they spend much time in a separate, systematic debugging stage. Participants spent 21 percent of their time pausing, presumably reading and/or thinking, prior to the initial keystrokes of spreadsheet creation episodes.

Handmarkings or handwritten editing marks can be used as direct editing commands to an interactive computer system. Five exploratory experiments studied the potential value of handmarkings for editing text and pictures, as well as for some specific results. Circles are the most frequently used scoping mark, and arrows are the most frequently used operator and target indicators. Experimental comparisons showed that handmarkings have the potential to be faster than keyboards and mice for editing tasks. Their ultimate value will, however, depend on the style and details of their user-interface implementation.

This paper discusses a set of tools supporting the rapid development of voice and telephony applications. The tools allow interfaces to be rapidly prototyped, tested and installed without impacting the underlying system. Used directly by behavioral specialists, they have played a key role in the building of two production systems. We review several essential features of this facility and then outline its role in the rapid development of a voice messaging system for the athletes and officials at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Nine participants used a full screen computer text-editor (XEDIT) with an IBM 3277 terminal to edit marked-up documents at each of three cursor speeds (3.3, 4.7, and 11.0 cm/sec.). Results show that 9% of editing time was spent controlling and moving the cursor, regardless of cursor speed. The variations in cursor speed studied did not seem to act as a pacing device for the entire editing task.

Psychological research methods have been used with increasing frequency in work on computer-human interaction. Judging from the state of the literature and from remarks heard in the halls at conferences such as this, the utility and appropriate roles of such methods are not yet clear. Panel members, who are all research psychologists working on issues related to human use of computers, will present a variety of contrasting views on how to go about such research, and on its proper goals. John Gould will describe two different but complimentary approaches, applied research on general design issues, and formative human factors participation in development. John Anderson will discuss the use of formal models of human cognition. Phil Barnard will consider the role of applied research in the discovery of underlying principles to guide design. Tom Landauer will propose that psychological research can be the basis for invention of new “;cognitive tools”. Short synopses of the positions they will take e given below. Panel members hope that the audience will join them in bringing out important differences between the various approaches and methods and arguing their absolute and relative merits.

Nine participants used a full-screen computer text editor (XEDIT) with an IBM 3277 terminal to edit marked-up documents at each of three cursor speeds (3.3, 4.7, and 11.0 cm/s). These speeds occur when a user continuously holds down an arrow key to move the cursor more than one character position (i.e., in repeat or typamatic mode). Results show that cursor speed did not seem to act as a pacing device for the entire editing task. Since cursor speed is a form of system response, this finding is in contrast with the generally found positive relation between system-response time and user-response time. Participants preferred the Fast cursor speed, however. Overall, more than one-third of all keystrokes were used to move the cursor. We estimate that 9-14 percent of editing time was spent controlling and moving the cursor, regardless of cursor speed.

This paper identifies the key behavioral challenges in designing a principal-support office system and our approaches to them.These challenges included designing a system which office principals would find useful and would directly use themselves.Ultimately, the system, called the Speech Filing System (SFS), became primarily a voice store and forward message system with which users compose, edit, send, and receive audio messages, using telephones as terminals.Our approaches included behavioral analyses of principals' needs and irritations, controlled laboratory experiments, several years of training, observing, and interviewing hundreds of actual SFS users, several years of demonstrating SFS to thousands of potential users and receiving feedback, empirical studies of alternative methods of training and documentation, continual major modifications of the user interface, simulations of alternative user interfaces, and actual SFS usage analyses.The results indicate that SFS is now relatively easy to learn, solves real business problems, and leads to user satisfaction.

Speech recognition is not yet advanced enough to provide people with a reliable listening typewriter with which they could compose documents. The aim of this experiment was to determine if an imperfect listening typewriter would be useful for highly experienced dictators. Participants dictated either in isolated words or in continuous speech, and used a simulated listening typewriter which recognized a limited vocabulary as well as one which recognized an unlimited one. Results suggest that reducing the rate at which people dictate, either through limitations in vocabulary size or through speaking in isolated words, led to reductions in people's performance. For these first-time users, no version of the listening typewriter was better than traditional dictating methods.