Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!ucivax!gateway
From: pmbs@stsci.edu
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Re:  Printable format (was: Re:  ISO/CCITT meeting report)
Message-ID: <9008151546.AA21097@GHOST.STSCI.EDU>
Date: 15 Aug 90 15:55:38 GMT
Lines: 38
Approved: usenet@ICS.UCI.EDU

>I had the same opinion as you, until I saw the results of the human
>factors investigation.

>This investigation found the following results:

	... table deleted

>So the human factors study did find that the best combination
>was to have a ***different*** format on the business card
>and in the user interface!!

I would caution against taking the results of any human factors
evaluation of user interfaces as gospel.  There are many wonderful
user interfaces out in the market, ALL of which seem to have their
strong advocates and even stronger detractors.  As a case in point,
many users seem to find the MAC interface very appealing and intuitive
but there are an equally large number who do not like it at all and
prefer a command line interface.  The results of any study are likely
to be biased by the level of experience of the users, their previous
familiarity with different interfaces, and their level of familiarity
with the "test" interface.  In my experience new users of an interface
tend to appreciate the form-fill-in style, but this loses it's appeal
after a short period of familiarity when the forms and menus are found
to get in the way.

To come back to the real issue, it does appear that some concise format
for E-mail names is well received on a business card, but longer forms,
or labelled forms, are not.  It also seems pretty obvious that any
user interface should at least have the ability to accept and properly
parse any *agreed* short form that appears on a business card.  Whether
such an interface can also support single command line entry, forms-fill-in,
and or a menu is an interface design issue and is also bound up in
operating system details of command line syntax and semantics.  There
are clearly many ways to handle these data input and presentation issues
but I do not believe that these details are the subject of any
standardization efforts.  Am I wrong?

							Peter