The vocabulary problem in human-system communication

  • Authors:
  • G. W. Furnas;T. K. Landauer;L. M. Gomez;S. T. Dumais

  • Affiliations:
  • Bell Communications Research, Inc., Morristown, NJ;Bell Communications Research, Inc., Morristown, NJ;Bell Communications Research, Inc., Morristown, NJ;Bell Communications Research, Inc., Morristown, NJ

  • Venue:
  • Communications of the ACM
  • Year:
  • 1987

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Abstract

In almost all computer applications, users must enter correct words for the desired objects or actions. For success without extensive training, or in first-tries for new targets, the system must recognize terms that will be chosen spontaneously. We studied spontaneous word choice for objects in five application-related domains, and found the variability to be surprisingly large. In every case two people favored the same term with probability