Natural command names and initial learning: a study of text-editing terms
Communications of the ACM
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There has been considerable controversy recently concerning the characteristics of computer command terms that affect the ease with which naive users acquire and learn to use these terms. Researchers have examined command words in terms of their "naturalness," semantic relation to the command function, specificity and/or obliqueness (as measured by users, designers and/ or experimenters), to name a few. (For illustrative research examples and a review of this literature, see Grudin and Barnard, 1984, Landauer, Galotti, and Hartwell, 1983, and Landauer and Galotti, 1984.) On the positive side, this research has helped bring into focus the need to consider how selection of command terms affects users' performance. On the negative side, however, there seems to be little agreement as to which, if any, of these factors really affects performance levels. This research was conducted to add to the empirical data base and to examine whether the findings from basic research on human memory can be used to predict performance in a real-world text editing task.