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Impact of a restricted natural language interface on ease of learning and productivity

Authors:

H. Albert Napier,

Richard R. Batsell,

Norman S. Guadango,

David M. LaneAuthors Info & Claims

Communications of the ACM, Volume 32, Issue 10

Pages 1190 - 1198

https://doi.org/10.1145/67933.67936

Published: 01 October 1989 Publication History

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Abstract

People process natural language in real time and with very limited short-term memories. This article describes a computational architecture for syntactic performance that also requires fixed finite resources.

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Cited By

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Tambwekar PSilva AGopalan NGombolay M(2023)Natural Language Specification of Reinforcement Learning Policies Through Differentiable Decision TreesIEEE Robotics and Automation Letters10.1109/LRA.2023.32685938:6(3621-3628)Online publication date: Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3268593
Bernstein AKaufmann E(2006)GINO – a guided input natural language ontology editorProceedings of the 5th international conference on The Semantic Web10.1007/11926078_11(144-157)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/11926078_11
Lane DNapier HPeres SSandor A(2005)Hidden Costs of Graphical User Interfaces: Failure to Make the Transition from Menus and Icon Toolbars to Keyboard ShortcutsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Interaction10.1207/s15327590ijhc1802_118:2(133-144)Online publication date: May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327590ijhc1802_1
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Index Terms

Impact of a restricted natural language interface on ease of learning and productivity

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Reviews

Reviewer: David Noel Card

This paper describes an experiment comparing a natural language interface (Lotus HAL) with a menu-oriented interface (Lotus 1-2-3). The authors compare the two interfaces with respect to measures of correctness and user preference, with which they are able to demonstrate an effect on ease of learning. Productivity per se is not discussed. The experiment seems to have been well planned and thoroughly analyzed. Two groups of novice users were hired (about 20 for each group). One group learned Lotus HAL and the other learned Lotus 1-2-3. The experimental subjects completed a survey of personal information that enabled the researchers to ensure that the two groups were comparable in terms of demographics. After training, the two groups worked problems which were scored as to correctness. The time available for solving problems was constrained by the experiment. The results showed that nearly twice as many subjects completed a budget problem correctly using Lotus HAL as did using Lotus 1-2-3. Moreover, the average number of correct problems increased more rapidly across problem sets with Lotus HAL than with Lotus 1-2-3. This led the authors to conclude that Lotus HAL is easier to learn. While this paper provides a good example of the application of the experimental method to a software engineering problem, the results are not necessarily extensible to more expert users or other application domains, as the authors note.

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Published In

Communications of the ACM Volume 32, Issue 10

Oct. 1989

101 pages

ISSN:0001-0782

EISSN:1557-7317

DOI:10.1145/67933

Editor:
Peter J. Denning
NASA Ames Reseach Center, Moffett Field, CA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 01 October 1989

Published in CACM Volume 32, Issue 10

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https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3268593
Bernstein AKaufmann E(2006)GINO – a guided input natural language ontology editorProceedings of the 5th international conference on The Semantic Web10.1007/11926078_11(144-157)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/11926078_11
Lane DNapier HPeres SSandor A(2005)Hidden Costs of Graphical User Interfaces: Failure to Make the Transition from Menus and Icon Toolbars to Keyboard ShortcutsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Interaction10.1207/s15327590ijhc1802_118:2(133-144)Online publication date: May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327590ijhc1802_1
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Abstract

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Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Transportability and generality in a natural-language interface system

Usable natural language interfaces through menu-based natural language understanding

The economics of natural language interfaces: natural language processing technology as a scarce resource

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