By Henry Ledgard, John A. Whiteside, Andrew Singer, William Seymour
Communications of the ACM,
October 1980,
Vol. 23 No. 10, Pages 556-563
10.1145/359015.359018
Comments
The work reported here stems from our deep belief that improved human engineering can add significantly to the acceptance and use of computer technology.
In particular, this report describes an experiment to test the hypothesis that certain features of natural language provide a useful guide for the human engineering of interactive command languages. The goal was to establish that a syntax employing familiar, descriptive, everyday words and well-formed English phrases contributes to a language that can be easily and effectively used. Users with varying degrees of interactive computing experience used two versions of an interactive text editor; one with an English-based command syntax in the sense described above, the other with a more notational syntax. Performance differences strongly favored the English-based editor.
The full text of this article is premium content
No entries found
Log in to Read the Full Article
Need Access?
Please select one of the options below for access to premium content and features.
Create a Web Account
If you are already an ACM member, Communications subscriber, or Digital Library subscriber, please set up a web account to access premium content on this site.
Join the ACM
Become a member to take full advantage of ACM's outstanding computing information resources, networking opportunities, and other benefits.
Subscribe to Communications of the ACM Magazine
Get full access to 50+ years of CACM content and receive the print version of the magazine monthly.
Purchase the Article
Non-members can purchase this article or a copy of the magazine in which it appears.
