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The human task as reference for system interface design

Published: 14 October 1976 Publication History

Abstract

Effective design of the working interface between humans and computers cannot merely depend on catalogs of respective "characteristics" of each of these two entities, nor on optimizing individual "functions" in the interactions. The proper purpose of a man-machine interface is to benefit a person in performing a task or a collection of goal-related tasks. The entire task, including its goals, is therefore the proper reference for the design, not the attribute lists of humans and computers. An effective design results from trading off sets of variables, including economic and psychological cost factors, in order to optimize resources for achieving task goals.

References

[1]
Miller, Robert B. Task description and analysis. Chap. 6 in Psychological Principles in System Development. (R. M. Gagne, editor) 1963. N. Y. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
[2]
Miller, Robert B. Archetypes in man-computer problem solving. IEEE Transactions on Man-Machine Systems. MMS-10:4 (December 1969) 219--241. (Reprinted from Ergonomics, 12:4 (July 1969)).
[3]
Miller, Robert B. Human ease of use criteria and their tradeoffs. IBM Corp. Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 12 April 1971. (Technical Report TR 00.2185).
[4]
Miller, Robert B. A method for determining task strategies. 1974. Air Force Human Resources Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. (AFHRL-TR-74-26) AD 783 847.

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  • (2024)White Paper on User Centred Design to Address Challenges in the Design and Creation of Agricultural Data Visualisation InterfacesAgriculture10.3390/agriculture1410180814:10(1808)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
  • (1982)User Differences in Interface DesignComputer10.1109/MC.1982.165388515:11(14-20)Online publication date: 1-Nov-1982
  1. The human task as reference for system interface design

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    UODIGS '76: Proceedings of the ACM/SIGGRAPH Workshop on User-oriented Design of Interactive Graphics Systems
    October 1976
    168 pages
    ISBN:9781450377898
    DOI:10.1145/1024273
    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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    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 14 October 1976

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    • (2024)White Paper on User Centred Design to Address Challenges in the Design and Creation of Agricultural Data Visualisation InterfacesAgriculture10.3390/agriculture1410180814:10(1808)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
    • (1982)User Differences in Interface DesignComputer10.1109/MC.1982.165388515:11(14-20)Online publication date: 1-Nov-1982

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