Human Factors in Computer Systems

There are a number of ways to describe the history of a book. In a very real sense the roots of every book are lost in antiquity with the proto-people who first communicated via language. In another way, a book is the product of a synergism resulting from the personal histories of all the people involved. In a less metaphysical sense, however, this book began one evening after an ANSI Meeting, and then took shape when a small group of people got together for dinner in Washington, D.C. after a conference on software metrics. We all? shared the common belief that the major bottleneck to increased productivity in the use of computers was in the human factors-the usability.

It had been clear to us, individually, for some time that the drastic improvements in hardware price/performance meant that proportionally, the speed and effectiveness with which people could learn and then effectively use computers were of major importance. We seemed to feel that the time had come to make this fact more widely known. What should be done? Hold a conference on human factors and computer systems!

Hold a conference! What could be simpler? As is probably obvious, it is not simple. This book would not have been written without the many people who made the conference possible. After some searching, we found a home for the conference at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. and a sponsor in the Washington chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). As our plans for the conference grew, we decided that in addition to publishing proceedings of the conference, we would have a book of selected papers and special issues of the Communications of the ACM and of Behavior, Instrumentation, and Technology.

We anticipated having as many as one hundred attendees. In order to process the papers, we selected a program committee; it turned out that over one hundred and fifty papers were submitted. Nearly everyone, it seemed, had something to say about the human factors of computer systems. As the conference date of March 1982 drew near, it became obvious that we would have over five hundred attendees. In actuality, over nine hundred people attended the conference. Jean Nichols, general chairman of the conference, did a superb job in organizing and coordinating the various elements of the conference. The National Bureau of Standards and the Washington Chapter of the ACM did a remarkable job in accommodating such a large number, while minimizing problems. The people involved deserve special thanks, particularly Charles Bridges-of ACM.

Support for the idea of a book came from John O'Hare of the Office of Naval Research Engineering Psychology Programs. Beyond that, however, John has supported much of the research in software human factors for many years, including much of our own earlier research. Special thanks goes to John for his foresight in realizing the importance of this area so early.

Thanks for hard work also goes to the members of the program committee and the reviewers of the papers in the conference, as well as the authors. On the program committee were: Michael Atwood, James Bair, Ruven Brook, H. E. Dunsmore, James Foley, Elihu Gerson, Thomas Green, Elizabeth Kruesi, David Lenorovitz, Thomas Moran, Franklin Moses, Peter Newsted, Phyllis Reisner, and Roger Schvaneveldt.

In order to publish a book, a publisher is also needed and we would like to thank Walter Johnson, founder and president of Ablex, for his continued support in this effort and the members of his staff.

We would also like to thank Ben Shneiderman, the editor of this series, not only for his help in this book, but even more important, for reminding numerous people at numerous conferences that computers are tools to serve people, and not vice versa.

Of course, the editors needed the support of our management to continue our efforts to ensure good human factors, not only in the products of our respective companies, but also in general. At Sperry, a number of people supported me [M. L. Schneider] in this endeavor. Dr. Richard Wexelblat, now at ITT, who encouraged my work in the conference, deserves special thanks. Dr. Hans C. Gyllstrom, director of Software Products Systems Design, has supported my work on this book. Mary Sterling, my secretary, is my right hand.

In my case [John Thomas], special thanks are due to Dr. Lewis Branscomb, former head of the National Bureau of Standards and IBM's chief scientist, who supported my involvement with the conference and did much to bring the increased importance of human factors to the attention of all IBM. Special thanks are also due to Dr. Stephen Boies, manager of IBM's Office Applications Research and developer of IBM's Audio Distribution System. Our secretaries, Carol Johnson, Judy Cantor, and Ann Hubby, were also invaluable. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Laura for her support in all things.

M.L. Schneider

John Thomas