Autobiography of a first-time discretionary microcomputer user

Authors:
Marilyn Mantei;Nancy Haskell
Affiliations:
Graduate School of Business, Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan;Graduate School of Business, Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Venue:
CHI '83 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Year:
1983

Citing 2
Cited 2

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Abstract

Research in the area of human-computer interaction has typically concentrated on hardware and software design characteristics which increase the usability of the system, or the effectiveness of the relationship between the user and the system in the accomplishment of a task (Bennett, 1979). Few of these studies have concentrated on documentation. This is striking since the documentation of a computer system is a major portion of the user's learning experience with the system and also the primary interface when difficulties with the system occur. There is a growing market of users who are expected to learn how to use a computer system solely by reading the documentation, namely, the personal computer users. The number of privately authored books on “how to survive the personal computer experience” bespeak both the growing number of such users and the inadequacy of the documentation provided by the vendors.