DIRECTING THE USER INTERFACE: HOW PEOPLE USE COMMAND-BASED COMPUTER SYSTEMS

Abstract

Several striking and surprising characteristics of how people use interactive systems are abstracted from a large body of recorded usage data. In particular, we examine frequencies of invocation of commands and complete command lines (including modifiers and arguments), as well as vocabulary growth. Individual differences are of particular interest, and the results are analyzed by user and by identifying groups of like users. The study underlines the remarkable diversity that exists even within groups having apparently similar needs.