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president in 1987-88. Starting in 1984, the Human Factors Group at Watson dissolved as a User
Interface Institute comprised heavily of cognitive psychologists formed. The latter contributed
heavily to CHI.
The principal focus of the new organization was signaled by the first paper at CHI '83. Don
Norman applied engineering techniques to discretionary use, with “user satisfaction functions”
based on technical parameters. Many early CHI papers addressed the psychology of program-
ming. Studies of editing were so numerous that in 1984 Thomas Green remarked that “text edi-
tors are the white rats of HCI.” Unlike HF&E research, with its focus on expert use, the emphasis
in CHI was on novice use. For discretionary users and for the vendors seeking to appeal to them,
early experience is crucial.
By contrast, there were few CHI studies of data entry and information retrieval by trained
users, despite widespread use at that time by airlines, banks, government agencies, and other
organizations. Databases did not involve hands-on discretionary use: Those who managed data-
base design decisions and read reports delegated direct use to people hired for that purpose.
I identified only three conference papers on database use in CHI's first decade, and all focused on
novice or casual use.
In Europe, fewer large companies focused on mass-market software. HCI research remained
with HF&E, MIS, and relatively nondiscretionary in-house development and use. German DIN
standards for keyboard ergonomics focused vendors' attention on human-computer interaction
starting in 1980, a year in which three influential works on ergonomics were published (Shackel,
1997). Shackel and his colleagues at Loughborough continued ergonomic studies of computer use
and in 1984 initiated the first graduate HCI program. One focus was “job design,” the division of
labor in organizational computing. They also worked with the Institute for Consumer Electronics,
primarily on product safety. An HCI group at the British Medical Research Council Applied
Psychology Unit, led by Philip Barnard, introduced multi-session lab studies of discretionary use,
bridging the CHI focus on novice use and the HF&E concern with skilled use. The INTERACT
conference series, meeting first in London in 1984 and chaired by Shackel, drew both HF&E and
CHI researchers. 3
The Significance of Discretionary Computer Use
Anyone using a computer would like an interface that he or she can learn easily, use efficiently,
and remember how to use, one that minimizes errors and that is enjoyable. For this reason, the sig-
nificance of this new category, highly discretionary users, was not appreciated. Priorities among
the goals were different. For nondiscretionary use, expert efficiency is critical, the initial experi-
ence and training requirements are secondary, and aesthetic considerations come last. For discre-
tionary use, initial experience, casual experience, and aesthetics often outweigh the other factors.
Differing priorities led to differences in research focus and methods.
As Hartwick and Barki (1994) note, mandatory use is not totally mandatory. One can resist,
sabotage, or use selectively. But short of quitting, in many jobs, such as data entry, use is manda-
tory. My job requires that I read e-mail and use a wide range of systems. For me, today, instant
messaging is discretionary.
Figure 19.1 positions some of the events, topics, and publications mentioned in this chapter. The
top row represents work in the human factors tradition, primarily concerned with mandatory, expert
use. The journal Human Factors, with broad coverage that began in 1959, was joined by the computer-
focused IJMMS in 1969 and Behaviour and Information Technology (BIT) in 1982. IJMMS ( IJHCS
since 1994) covered information systems, decision-support systems, knowledge-based systems,
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