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From: thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: expert-friendly: are long names a waste of time?
Message-ID: <990@utah-gr.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Nov-83 07:43:18 EST
Article-I.D.: utah-gr.990
Posted: Mon Nov 14 07:43:18 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Nov-83 04:41:42 EST
References: watmath.6122
Lines: 43

Let me clarify.  I quote from "Natural Command Names and Initial
Learning: A Study of Text-Editing Terms", CACM 26,7 (July 1983), 495. 
First, from the abstract:
	... computer-naive typists spent two hours learning minimal
	text-editing systmes that varied in several ways.  Lexical
	naturalness [e.g. "natural" command names] ... made little
	difference in their performance. ... having different, rather
	than the same names for operations requiring different syntax
	greatly reduced difficulty.  It is concluded that the design
	of user-compatible commands involves deeper issues than are
	captured by the slogan "naturalness".  ... Only initial learning
	of a small set of commands was at issue ...  generalization ...
	will require further testing.

The article is actually in two parts, the first was a study which asked
people what they would call certain text editing operations.  Not
surprisingly, there was a VERY large amount of variation.

The editor command sets they used were
	Old		New		Random
	---		---		------
	Delete		Omit		Allege
	Append		Add		Cipher
	Substitute	Change		Deliberate
Where the "new" names were supposedly more natural, based on the results
of part 1.

>From the conclusion, talking about choosing command names:
	We began our investigations with the hypothesis that commonly
	used words for similar operations in the noncomputer
	environment would be best.  Such words are familiar and have
	at least approximately correct known meanings, so they should
	demand minimal new learning.  This line of reasoning has a wide
	following .... It now appears to be a somewhat naively
	undifferentiated view.  ... popular [words] [are] the ones less
	consistently applied .... Clearly, constructing a command set of
	words whose natural meanings tend to lead to misuse is not
	desirable. .... The finial conclusion ... is clear: rational
	design of commands and command names for usability requires
	deeper understanding than is captured in the slogan "make the
	language natural."
	
=Spencer