Human factors testing in the design of Xerox's 8010 “Star” office workstation

Abstract

integral to the design process of the Xerox 8010 "Star" workstation was constant concern for the user interface. The design was driven hy principles of human cognition. Prototyping of ideas, paper-and-pencil analyses, and human-factors experiments with potential users all aided in making design decisions. Three of the human-factors experiments are described in this paper: A selection schemes test determined the number of buttons on the mouse pointing device and the meanings of these buttons for doing text selection. An icon test showed us the significant parameters in the shapes of objects on the display screen. A graphics test evaluated the user interface for making line drawings, and resulted in a redesign of that interface.

Empirical Usability Testing in a Component-Based Environment: Improving Test Efficiency with Component-Specific Usability Measures

“…Focussing on the usability of a single component is not new. One of the first usability testing papers presented at the first SIGCHI conference [1] focused on specific components of the Xerox's 8010 "Star" office workstation, such as text selection, icon recognition and the selection of graphic objects. In these kinds of socalled unit tests, users are asked only to perform a very limited task that requires interaction with a particular component such as selecting text.…”

“…None of them used a mobile telephone on a daily or weekly basis 1 . The kinds of tasks they had to perform with the mobile telephone were calling to someone's voice-mail system; adding a person's name and number to the phone's address list; and sending a text message.…”

Component-Specific Usability Testing

“…2 Note that some textbooks refer to this as treatment effect instead of betweengroup effect because it is the difference between the mean of the treatment and the grand mean (2). The group size (n) is seven, which makes that SS b is 7[(50 − 60)…”

“…For example, one of the first usability-testing papers at the first special interest group on computer-human interaction (SIGCHI) conference [2] focused on specific components of the Xerox's 8010 Start Office workstation, such as text selection, icon recognition and the selection of graphical objects. These so-called unit tests, however, provide less valid results, as users are asked to perform a very limited task that only requires interaction with a particular component, e.g., selecting a sentence.…”

Partizipative Konzepte, Methoden und Techniken zur Optimierung der Softwareentwicklung

“…Inzwischen gibt es ausreichend empirische Belege dafür, daß durch arbeits-und benutzerorientiertes Vorgehen bei der Softwareentwicklung nicht nur nachweislich Kosten eingespart, sondern auch signifikant angemessenere Softwareprodukte entwickelt werden (Boehm, Gray & Seewaldt 1981;Smith et al 1982;Bewley et al 1983;Gomaa 1983;Scharer 1983;Baroudi, Olson & Ives 1986;Foidl, Hillebrand & Tavolato 1986;Peschke 1986;Jones 1987;Peschke & Wittstock 1987;Spinas 1987;Mantei & Teorey 1988;Spinas & Ackermann 1989;van der Schaaf 1989b;Karat 1990;Floyd et al 1990;Strohm 1990aStrohm b 1991aRauterberg 1991a c). Wie lassen sich die drei oben erwähnten Barrieren nun im einzelnen überwinden?…”