3 ms·

Totally agree. I didn't read the paper, but I doubt they have modeled the fact that people have a finite amount of time that they can invest in internalising s

Totally agree. I didn't read the paper, but I doubt they have modeled the fact that people have a finite amount of time that they can invest in internalising stuff. IOW, (I presume) they have not looked at the opportunity cost of internalising UI details, and often that time is better invested in other pursuits.

long 16y ago
In fact they did. They measured total task time for internalized versus externalized conditions. Contra your prediction, there wasn't a significant difference. Keep in mind this is one limited experiment so it's obviously not the final say, but it's always good to actually look at the data.
- j_random_hacker 16y ago
  Thanks, you're quite right. Having now skimmed the paper "Does an interface with less assistance provoke more thoughtful behavior?", I would say that the measures of how many moves were made or remade, and how long was taken before the first move, are basically irrelevant, as the only quantities of genuine interest are how long the solution takes, and how well the subjects did on the questions afterwards. As you say, there was no significant difference in average solution time -- even though the low-NFC group did on average 19s better on the externalised version. Nor was there a statistically significant difference in either of the question types (although one type was close to favouring the internalised approach at p = 0.06). Maybe the other papers are more persuasive.
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    Just to clarify: are we talking about "learning the interface" plus "accomplishing task" here, or just "accomplishing task"? I'm pretty sure that e.g. unzipping your first archive with WinZip can be done more quickly than untarring your first archive with tar...
    - long 16y ago
      Both people had to learn to use an interface for scheduling speakers on a calendar GUI. Roughly speaking, in the externalized condition, more problem constraints were identifiable through visual feedback, while these were absent and had to be inferred in the internalized condition. So, (in this paper), we're talking about planning versus relying on more external visual cues. Your WinZip versus tar example is apt, but it also introduces the issue of GUI versus CLI, which isn't addressed by the paper.

long 16y ago

In fact they did. They measured total task time for internalized versus externalized conditions. Contra your prediction, there wasn't a significant difference. Keep in mind this is one limited experiment so it's obviously not the final say, but it's always good to actually look at the data.

j_random_hacker 16y ago
Thanks, you're quite right. Having now skimmed the paper "Does an interface with less assistance provoke more thoughtful behavior?", I would say that the measures of how many moves were made or remade, and how long was taken before the first move, are basically irrelevant, as the only quantities of genuine interest are how long the solution takes, and how well the subjects did on the questions afterwards. As you say, there was no significant difference in average solution time -- even though the low-NFC group did on average 19s better on the externalised version. Nor was there a statistically significant difference in either of the question types (although one type was close to favouring the internalised approach at p = 0.06). Maybe the other papers are more persuasive.
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  Just to clarify: are we talking about "learning the interface" plus "accomplishing task" here, or just "accomplishing task"? I'm pretty sure that e.g. unzipping your first archive with WinZip can be done more quickly than untarring your first archive with tar...
  - long 16y ago
    Both people had to learn to use an interface for scheduling speakers on a calendar GUI. Roughly speaking, in the externalized condition, more problem constraints were identifiable through visual feedback, while these were absent and had to be inferred in the internalized condition. So, (in this paper), we're talking about planning versus relying on more external visual cues. Your WinZip versus tar example is apt, but it also introduces the issue of GUI versus CLI, which isn't addressed by the paper.