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Further reading □ Foreword □ Contents □ Preface □ Prologue □ Acknowledgements □ Participants □ 1. Introduction □ 2. Control Structures □ 3. Syntactic Structures □ 4. Cognitive psychology and interaction □ 5. Visual Communication □ 6. Presentations □ 7. Working Groups □ 8. Group Reports □ 9. Postscript □ 10. Position papers □ 10.1 Anson □ 10.2 Baecker □ 10.3 Bo □ 10.4 van den Bos □ 10.5 Crestin □ 10.6 Dunn □ 10.7 Dzida □ 10.8 Eckert □ 10.9 Encarnacao □ 10.10 Engelman □ 10.11 Foley □ 10.12 Guedj □ 10.13 ten Hagen □ 10.14 Hopgood □ 10.15 Klint □ 10.16 Krammer □ 10.17 Moran □ 10.18 Mudur □ 10.19 Negroponte □ 10.20 Newell □ 10.21 Newman □ 10.22 Nievergelt □ 10.23 Ohsuga □ 10.24 Rosenthal □ 10.25 Sancha □ 10.26 Shaw □ 10.27 Tozzi □ 11. Bibliography
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⟶ ACD ⟶ Literature ⟶ Books ⟶ Methodology of Interaction
⟶ ACD ⟶ Literature ⟶ Books ⟶ Methodology of Interaction
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Further reading ⇓

□ Foreword □ Contents □ Preface □ Prologue □ Acknowledgements □ Participants □ 1. Introduction □ 2. Control Structures □ 3. Syntactic Structures □ 4. Cognitive psychology and interaction □ 5. Visual Communication □ 6. Presentations □ 7. Working Groups □ 8. Group Reports □ 9. Postscript
10. Position papers
□ 10.1 Anson □ 10.2 Baecker □ 10.3 Bo □ 10.4 van den Bos □ 10.5 Crestin □ 10.6 Dunn □ 10.7 Dzida □ 10.8 Eckert □ 10.9 Encarnacao □ 10.10 Engelman □ 10.11 Foley □ 10.12 Guedj □ 10.13 ten Hagen □ 10.14 Hopgood □ 10.15 Klint □ 10.16 Krammer □ 10.17 Moran □ 10.18 Mudur □ 10.19 Negroponte □ 10.20 Newell □ 10.21 Newman □ 10.22 Nievergelt □ 10.23 Ohsuga □ 10.24 Rosenthal □ 10.25 Sancha □ 10.26 Shaw □ 10.27 Tozzi □ 11. Bibliography

1. INTRODUCTION

R A Guedj

Menu

DINER

* * *

OEUFS POCHES CARIGNAN

* * *

GOULASH à la HONGROISE

RIZ PILAW

* * *

PLATEAU de FROMAGES

* * *

COUPE GLACEE

* * *

Seillac, le 7 Mai 1979

Domaine de Seillac

41150 Onzain

1.1 GOALS OF THE WORKSHOP - R.A.GUEDJ

One wood mouse can nibble a large hole. -Muggles, Maxims

Welcome to Seillac! This Workshop, called Selllac II, on Methodology of Interaction offers some exciting days ahead. I would like to outline what I feel should be the goals of the Workshop and, also, to make some suggestions as to how we should proceed.

The main goal is to get a deeper understanding of the whole field of man-machine interaction. Note that I say a deeper understanding of the whole field and not just an increasing awareness of some aspects. We should try to understand all aspects of interaction and in that way we may obtain some understanding of the whole.

Subgoals of the Workshop are the production of some form of written record of what was achieved and the dissemination of information to the community at large. Our goals are ambitious but I am sure we would all like to make a significant step towards understanding and describing interaction.

How do we expect to reach this understanding. We are going to interact with each other in small groups and in full sessions - it will be a kind of collective scientific exercise.

Let me first give a word of warning. Some aspects of interaction may be easier to describe than others. Some aspects may be easier to measure. To go too deep into understanding these may be harmful if we want to achieve a balanced view. We should not confuse rigour of expression with clear thinking. We may have to refrain from exploiting well-known and powerful techniques and instead venture down harder roads in order to Find those aspects which are difficult to apprehend.

With reference to the term interaction, we all use expressions like definition, description, specification, generation, representation, models of dialogues, models of interactive systems, graphical, non-graphical, and so on. When we use these expressions, we communicate to the listener a vague and fuzzy meaning. What I would like to see come out of this Workshop is the delineation of a few concepts which will help us ask the right questions and state what the issues are.

On a practical level, we might expect to collect some rules and principles that apply to the design of good interactive systems. We should not be satisfied with that. We must know why those rules and principles apply and why they should work.

1.1.1 Examples of Bad Interaction

Let me give you two specific examples which exhibit confusion and misunderstanding in existing interactive systems. These examples are taken from outside the computer world. However, they show our lack of understanding of the basis for good man-machine interaction. In both cases, we now have some idea about which rules of good design have been violated. But it is still not certain what all the reasons for the bad interaction are.

1.1.2 Public Telephones

In the United Kingdom, public telephone boxes contain instructions for the user. This particular example is well described in [1]. To make a call, the user has to:

  1. Pick up the receiver
  2. Dial the number
  3. Wait until somebody answers the call. This is signalled by a series of pips.
  4. Quickly insert the money and talk

However, until recently the boxes contained the instruction:

DO HOT INSERT MONEY UNTIL NUMBER ANSWERS

This instruction caused a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding and, eventually, it was changed in all British telephone boxes.

One reason for confusion is, presumably, that the instruction tells the user what not to do but does not tell him what he should do. The reference [1] also suggests that the instruction depends on a wrong assumption of the user's beliefs. The first reason about avoiding negative statements is not new. In the book The Elements of Style, a classic book used in schools whose first version appeared in 1909 [2], the author states:

Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; he wishes to be told what is. Hence, as a rule, it is better to express even a negative in a positive form.

The not should be used as a means of denial or in antithesis. This rule was usually considered a question of style rather than a principle for good interaction.

1.1.3 French Road Signs

Would all the people here who are allowed to drive on French roads and, who are absolutely sure that they know the precise meaning of this road sign (Fig 1), please raise their hands [Editor: 3 to 4 out of 37 raised their hands].

This sign is used in at least three other variations (Fig 2).

Interaction is certainly not very effective in this case as there are several accidents every day in France which can be attributed to not yielding the right of way.

(a)

Figure 1

150 m (b) STOP (c) Cedez le passage vous n'avez pas la priorite (d)

Figure 2

The reason, I think, is because when the sign (b) appears first with, for example, 150m at the bottom, the user assumes that he is being given an item of knowledge. He immediately enters a receiving mode of communication. When the user sees the sign (a), the intended effect is that this should be an imperative statement. However, nothing in the sign (a) conveys such a mode. Also, the similarity between (b) and (a) may leave the user thinking he is in the same mode, that is receiving a piece of information. Hence the confusion and the lack of relevant behaviour. The signs (c) and (d) both give explicit instructions and stand by themselves.

1.1.4 Final Words

In closing, I would like to add that you have been invited not just because you are competent, full of experience and knowledge, but also because you are capable of stimulating each other. Let me conclude by saying that when you are convinced that the one you are listening to is completely mistaken and that nothing can be done, there is still something to do as suggested by Wittgenstein:

Your concept is wrong.
However, I cannot illuminate
the matter by fighting against
your words
but only by trying
to turn your attention
away from certain expressions,
illustrations, images
and towards the employment
of the words.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1.1.5 References

(1) D.E.Broadbent, 'Language and Ergonomics', Applied Ergonomics, 1977.

(2) W.Strunk and E.B.White, 'The Elements of Style', MacMillan 1972.

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