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Getting into a system: External-internal task mapping analysis

Published:12 December 1983Publication History

ABSTRACT

A task analysis technique, called ETIT analysis, is introduced. It is based on the idea that tasks in the external world must be reformulated into the internal concepts of a computer system before the system can be used. The analysis is in the form of a mapping between sets of external tasks and internal tasks. An example analysis of several text editing systems is presented, and various properties of the systems are derived from the analysis. Further, it is shown how this analysis can be used to assess the potential transfer of knowledge from one system to another, i.e., how much knowing one system helps with learning another. Several issues are briefly discussed.

References

  1. 1.Card, S. K., Moran, T. P., and Newell, A. (1983). The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  2. 2.Douglas, S. A. (1983). Learning to text edit: semantics in procedural skill acquisition. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
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  8. 8.Young, R. M. (1983). Surrogates and mappings: two kinds of conceptual models for interactive devices. In A. L. Stevens and D. Gentner, eds., Mental Models, pp. 35-52. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar

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        cover image ACM Conferences
        CHI '83: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
        December 1983
        306 pages
        ISBN:0897911210
        DOI:10.1145/800045

        Copyright © 1983 ACM

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        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        • Published: 12 December 1983

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        Acceptance Rates

        CHI '83 Paper Acceptance Rate59of176submissions,34%Overall Acceptance Rate6,199of26,314submissions,24%

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