Understanding Human-Computer Interaction for Information Systems Design.

Author List: Gerlach, James H.; Kuo, Feng-Yang;
MIS Quarterly, 1991, Volume 15, Issue 4, Page 527-549.
Over the past 35 years, information technology has permeated every business activity. This growing use of information technology promised an unprecedented increase in end-user productivity. Yet this promise is unfulfilled, due primarily to a lack of understanding of end-user behavior. End-user productivity is tied directly to functionality and ease of learning and use. Furthermore, system designers lack the necessary guidance and tools to apply effectively what is known about human-computer interaction (HCI) during systems design. Software developers need to expand their focus beyond functional requirements to include the behavioral needs of users. Only when system functions fit actual work and the system is easy to learn and use will the system be adopted by office workers and business professionals. The large, interdisciplinary body of research literature suggest HCI's importance as well as its complexity. This article is the product of an extensive effort to integrate the diverse body of HCI literature into a comprehensible framework that provides guidance to system designers, HCI design is divided into three major divisions: system model, action language, and presentation language. The system model is a conceptual depiction of system objects and functions. The basic premise is that the selection of a good system model provides direction for designing action and presentation languages that determine the system's look and feel. Major design recommendations in each division are identified along with current research trends and future research issues.
Keywords: User-computer interface; user mental model; human factors; system model; presentation language; action language
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#104 0.167 action research engagement principles model literature actions focus provides developed process emerging establish field build guidance known project elements insights
#26 0.103 business large organizations using work changing rapidly make today's available designed need increasingly recent manage years activity important allow achieve
#283 0.103 interface user users interaction design visual interfaces human-computer navigation human need cues studies guidelines laboratory functional developed restricted know guided
#159 0.101 systems information objectives organization organizational development variety needs need efforts technical organizations developing suggest given effective designing lack help recent
#3 0.080 problems issues major involved legal future technological impact dealing efforts current lack challenges subsystem related highly present addressing likely recommendations
#83 0.078 personal computers use lead order using users pcs innovativeness understanding professional help forces gained usage increase trends parallel introduced expressed
#248 0.068 computing end-user center support euc centers management provided users user services organizations end satisfaction applications article ibm step field policies
#77 0.056 information systems paper use design case important used context provide presented authors concepts order number various underlying implementation framework nature
#216 0.051 conceptual model modeling object-oriented domain models entities representation understanding diagrams schema semantic attributes represented representing object relationships concepts classes entity-relationship