Showing papers in "ACM Transactions on Information Systems in 1983"

How do people organize their desks?: Implications for the design of office information systems

Abstract: This paper describes a series of interviews focusing on the way professional and clerical office workers organize the information in their desks and offices. A number of implications for designing "natural" and convenient computer-based information systems are discussed. Two principal claims are made: (1) A very important function of desk organization is to remind the user of things to do, not just to help the user find desired information. Failing to support this function may seriously impair the usefulness of electronic office systems, and explicitly facilitating it may provide an important advantage for automated office systems over their nonautomated predecessors. (2) The cognitive difficulty of categorizing information is an important factor in explaining how people organize their desks. Computer-based systems may help with this difficulty by (a) doing as much automatic classification as possible (e.g., based on access dates}, and (b) including untitled "piles" of information arranged by physical location as well as explicitly titled and logically arranged "files." Several other implications for the design of electronic office systems are discussed, and some differences in how people organize their desks are described.

Office procedure as practical action: models of work and system design

Abstract: The design of office technology relies upon underlying conceptions of human organization and action. The goal of building office information systems requires a representation of office work and its relevant objects. The concern of this paper is that although system designers recognize the centrality of procedural tasks in the office, they tend to ignore the actual work involved in accomplishing those tasks. A perspicuous instance of work in an accounting office is used to recommend a new line of research into the practical problems of office work, and to suggest preliminary implications of that research for office systems design.

The clearinghouse: a decentralized agent for locating named objects in a distributed environment

Abstract: The problem of naming and locating objects in a distributed environment is considered, and the clearinghouse, a decentralized agent for supporting the naming of these \"network-visible\" objects, is described. The objects \"known\" to the clearinghouse are of many types and include workstations, file servers, print servers, mail servers, clearinghouse servers, and human user. All objects known to the clearinghouse are named using the same convention, and the clearinghouse provides information about objects in a uniform fashion, regardless of their type. The clearinghouse also supports aliases. The clearinghouse binds a name to a set of properties of various types. For instance, the name of a user may be associated with the location of his local workstation, mailbox, and nonlocation information such as password and comments. The clearinghouse is decentralized and replicated. Tha t is, instead of one global clearinghouse server, there are many local clearinghouse servers, each storing a copy of a portion of the global database. The totality of services supplied by these clearinghouse servers is called \"the clearinghouse.\" Decentralization and replication increase efficiency, security, and reliability. A request to the clearinghouse to bind a name to its set of properties may originate anywhere in the system and be directed to any clearinghouse server. A clearinghouse client need not be concerned with the question of which clearinghouse server actually contains the binding-the clearinghouse stub in the client in conjunction with distributed clearinghouse servers automatically fmds the mapping ff it exists. Updates to the various copies of a mapping may occur asynchronously and be interleaved with requests for bindings of names to properties; updates to the various copies are not treated as indivisible transactions. Any resulting inconsistency between the various copies is only transient: the clearinghouse automatically arbitrates between conflicting updates to restore consistency.

Learning to use word processors: problems and prospects

Abstract: Computer text editors are powerful, but complex, tools. Particularly in the early stages of learning, the complexity of these tools can cause serious problems for users who are not experienced with computers. The problems of new users were studied by asking the users to think out loud while learning to use word-processing systems. In this paper several of the most typical and debilitating problems these users had understanding and following directions in using training manuals, as well as problems understanding and using interface functions to accomplish word processing tasks, are taxonomized and analyzed. Approaches for improving design features of the interface functions and the training methods used for learning are discussed. Catergories and Subject Descriptors: H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems-human factors; human information processing: H.4.1 [Information Systems Applications] Office Automation--equipment; word processing; 1.2.6 [Artificial Intelligence]: Learning--analogies; concept learning General Terms: Human Factors Additional

Integrating diverse knowledge sources in text recognition

Abstract: The capabilities of present commercial machines for producing correct text by recognizing words in print, handwriting and speech are very limited. For example, most optical character recognition [OCR] machines are limited to a few fonts of machine print, or text that is handprinted under certain constraints; any deviation from these constraints will produce highly garbled text. This paper describes an algorithm for text recognition/correction that effectively merges a bottom-up refinement process that is based on the utilization of transitional probabilities and letter confusion probabilities, known as the Viterbi algorithm [VA], together with a top-down process based on searching a trie structure representation of a lexicon. The algorithm is applicable to text containing an arbitrary number of character substitution errors such as that produced by OCR machines.

Human factors challenges in creating a principal support office system—the speech filing system approach

Abstract: This paper identifies the key behavioral challenges in designing a principal-support office system and our approaches to them. These challenges included designing a system which office principals would find useful and would directly use themselves. Ultimately, the system, called the Speech Filing System (SFS), became primarily a voice store and forward message system with which users compose, edit, send, and receive audio messages, using telephones as terminals. Our approaches included behavioral analyses of principals' needs and irritations, controlled laboratory experiments, several years of training, observing, and interviewing hundreds of actual SFS users, several years of demonstrating SFS to thousands of potential users and receiving feedback, empirical studies of alternative methods of training and documentation, continual major modifications of the user interface, simulations of alternative user interfaces, and actual SFS usage analyses. The results indicate that SFS is now relatively easy to learn, solves real business problems, and leads to user satisfaction.

Message files

Abstract: Consider an office information system and the messages which circulate within it. We will assume for the purpose of this paper that the messages are text messages in machine readable form. We are interested in designing a message filing capability which has the following characteristics:1) It can deal with a wide variety of messages2) It can retrieve the messages in a flexible manner3) It provides a simple and uniform interface to the user4) It can be implemented efficiently for a large volume of messagesWe define messages as consisting of a header and a body [Kirstein]. The header contains formatted data representing the most important characteristics of the messages, e.g., sender, date, destination, etc. The body is text consisting of a series of words. We will denote by A0, A1,. . . An the attributes of the header. A0 is a special attribute which contains a unique system-wide identifier for the message. The body will be denoted as an attribute B of type text. A particular message will be represented as (a0 ,a1. . . a0, b). All messages do not have to be of the same type. Each type of message, however, is represented by a set of attributes and a body. In the two extreme cases we have the message type (A0,B), i.e., documents and (A0,A1,. . . ,An), i.e., records. Forms as messages can be represented as (A0. . . ,An,B) with the additional stipulation that the values of A's are dispersed within B.

Supporting organizational problem solving with a work station

Abstract: Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. An approach to supporting work in the office is described. Using and extending ideas from the field of artificial intelligence (AI) we describe office work as a problem-solving activity. A knowledge-embedding language called OMEGA is used to embed knowledge of the organization into an office worker's work station in order to support the office worker in problem solving. A particular approach to reasoning about change and contradiction is discussed. This approach uses OMEGA's viewpoint mechanism, which is a general contradiction-handling facility. Unlike other knowledge representation systems, when a contradiction is reached the reasons for the contradiction can be analyzed by the deduction mechanism without having to resort to search mechanisms such as a backtracking. The viewpoint mechanism is the heart of the problem-solving support paradigm, a paradigm which supplements the classical AI view of problem solving. An example is presented in which OMEGA's facilities are used to support an office worker's problem-solving activities. The example illustrates the use of viewpoints and of OMEGA's capabilities to reason about its own reasoning processes. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.3.4 [ Information Storage and Retrieval ]: Systems and Software— information networks ; H.4.1 [ Information Systems Applications ]: Office Automation; I.2.1 [ Artificial Intelligence ]: Applications and Expert Systems— office automation ; I.2.4 [ Artificial Intelligence ]: Knowledge Representation Formalisms and Methods— semantic networks

A data modeling approach for office information systems

Abstract: A data model for representing the structure and semantics of office objects is proposed. The model contains features for modeling forms, documents, and other complex objects; these features include a constraint mechanism based on triggers, templates for presenting objects in different media, and unformatted data types such as text and audio. The representation of common office objects is described. User-level commands may be translated to operations within the model.

Authentication in office system internetworks

Abstract: In a distributed office system, authentication data (such as passwords) must be managed in such a way that users and machines from different organizations can easily authenticate themselves to each other. The authentication facility must be secure, but user convenience, decentralized administration, and a capability for smooth, long-term evolution are also important. In addition, the authentication arrangements must not permit failures at a single node to cause systemwide down time. The design used in the Xerox 8000 Series products is described. This design anticipates applications in an opennetwork architecture where there are nodes from diverse sources and one node does not trust authentication checking done by other nodes. Furthermore, in some offices encryption will be required to authenticate data transmissions despite hostile intruders on the network. Requirements and design constraints when applying encryption for authentication in office systems are discussed. It is suggested that protocol standards for use in office systems should allow unencrypted authentication as well as two options for encrypted authentication. Issues that will arise as an office system evolves to deal with increasingly sophisticated threats from users of the system are described.

The design of Star's records processing: data processing for the noncomputer professional

Abstract: Xerox's Star Professional Workstation is distinguished by a graphic user interface committed to the \"what-you-see-is-what-you-get\" design philosophy. The system promotes a see/point/push-a-button style of interaction with immediate feedback, in marked contrast to more familiar programming or command language interfaces. Star's records processing feature integrates traditional data processing functionality into this user model, using standard Star documents for data de£mition, entry, display, update, and report generation. Benefits include an economy of concepts and effort for user and implementor alike, along with the synergy of a unified environment.

Details of command-language keystrokes

Abstract: Keystrokes The Keystroke-Level Model asserts that the time for an expert to enter a task using a command language is a function of specific task-acquisition, mental, and motor-response times. The evidence for the model is critically reviewed, and new data are presented. The fit of the new data to the model is modest even when several modifications of the model are considered. It is proposed that a more complex model, based explicitly on cognitive processes, is necessary.

Message system mores: etiquette in Laurel

Abstract: Electronic message systems provide a new mode of communication that currently lacks an accepted set of social protocols. On the basis of observations of user behavior in Laurel, a widely used electronic message system, several suggestions for message system etiquette are given. Topics covered include misaddressed messages, rudeness, message system costs, unsolicited messages, chain reactions, and masquerading.

An experimental distributed modeling system

Abstract: Computer systems will increasingly rely on distributed components in order to increase performance while providing autonomous computing facilities. This evolution implies that a corresponding advance must take place in the state of the art of system analysis and evaluation. This paper describes an experimental modeling system developed to study distributed office information systems. The modeling system is unusual in that the simulation component is itself a distributed program. Support facilities and the organization of the simulator are presented.

Projecting demand for electronic communications in automated offices

Abstract: The large projected growth in the use of office information systems over the next ten years will in turn significantly increase the demand for electronic communications in offices. Projections for this demand on a per employee basis are developed, based on assumed office automation scenarios and case-study observations of current activity levels. Implications for communications systems design are discussed. The results are also compared with observed communications traffic in an existing automated office environment.