Choosing and using names for information retrieval

Janet A. Pitman and Stephen J. Payne,

School of Psychology,

Cardiff University,

PO Box 901,

Cardiff, CF1 3YG.

INTRODUCTION

Despite the advent of modern graphical user interfaces access to files on personal computers is nearly always mediated by a lexical name. In many situations the user of the file chooses the name for later retrieval; alternatively, where information is shared across more than one user, a user may be required to use a name that has been chosen by someone else. Choice and use of names was an important topic in early HCI research, but has recently become less fashionable. However, many psychological issues with important usability consequences remain unresolved. This poster describes a pair of experiments that investigate the relationship between choosing and using names.

Informal empirical studies suggest that retrieval of files named by oneself is typically quite successful (Carroll, 1982; Malone, 1983; Nardi and Barreau, 1995). Furthermore, some experimental studies have suggested that self-chosen names are reliably better than are names chosen by others. Broadbent and Broadbent (1978) found a 50 per cent advantage in using ones own descriptors for file retrieval. Similarly, Scapin (1982) reports an advantage in recall for individually generated command-names. However, Carroll (1985) compared self-created and externally imposed command names and found only a marginal benefit for ones own set.

An established advantage for self-chosen over imposed names may have two possible explanations. First, the advantage may lie in the processing performed during name-choice; users may remember aspects of the processing episode in addition to the name itself. This explanation would make the"self- choice effect" somewhat analogous to the established "generation effect" in verbal learning. On the other hand, it is possible that self-chosen names are better names, for example because they are more strongly associated with their referents for their particular user. If this explanation has some truth, it suggests that people are able to adapt their name choices to the idiosyncrasies of their own cognitive systems. An interesting related question is whether people can also successfully adapt to the role of "designers", i.e. can they create names which are better suited for others than are names which they choose for themselves to use? This question becomes of immediate practical importance in co- operative work situations, where files are stored on shared disks and accessed by a community of users. EXPERIMENT 1

Four groups of participants took part in the study. The"self-choice"group were instructed to choose single word filenames for paragraphs of text for their own use in subsequent memory tasks. Each member of the "other-imposed" group was yoked to a member of the self choice group, and used their partners names in the memory tasks. Participants in the "design" group were instructed to design names for other people to use,although they later also used these names themselves. Each member of the "designed-imposed" group was yoked to a member of the design group and used the names that partner had generated. Forty paragraphs of text served as target files. Participants firstly chose or studied names for these paragraphs and after a filled delay of ten minutes were given a recognition test in which they had to choose which of the forty paragraphs was associated with twenty of the names. Participants then attempted to recall the names for the other twenty paragraphs. For each memory test, three planned comparisons were made. The self-choice effect was tested by comparing performance of the self group with the other imposed group and with the design-imposed group.Whether participants could adapt to the perceived needs of others was tested by comparing the other imposed group to the design-imposed group. For the recognition test there was significant advantage for self-choice (56% correct) over other-imposed (34%) and over design imposed (36%). The difference between the two imposed conditions was not significant. For the name-recall task performance was generally slightly lower but the pattern of significant comparisons was identical: the two imposed groups performed at about half the level of the self-choice group. In summary experiment 1 established a statistically reliable and numerically compelling advantage for self-chosen names.

EXPERIMENT 2

This study used a similar design to experiment 1 but attempted to directly test the two explanations for the self-choice effect. We reasoned that an advantage due to memory-for-processing should be less long-lasting than an advantage due to idiosyncratically better associations. Consequently we introduced a second testing session after a delay of one week. At the beginning of this session, participants in each

of the four groups re-studied the names (again, we assumed that this would lessen any processing differences between the groups.) Only the name-recall task was used in both test sessions. In test session 1, the planned comparisons replicated experiment 1. There was strong evidence for a self choice effect, but no evidence for adaptive "designing". By the second session, however, the situation changed. The self choice group was still significantly better than the other-imposed group (69% versus 46%). However it was not significantly better than the design-imposed group (61%) which was itself significantly better than the other-imposed group. This pattern of results suggests two conclusions. First, there is a substantial self-choice advantage which is probably best attributed to both a processing advantage and a name-target associative advantage. Second, people can adapt their name choices to the needs of others: the names chosen by "designers" were better for other people than were the names chosen by the self-choice group. In co-operative work situations, people will produce better filenames if they know at the time they are creating names that will be used by others and make the usability by others their primary design criterion.

REFERENCES

Barreau, D. and Nardi, B. (1995): Finding and reminding: File organisation from the desktop. SIG CHI

Bulletin, Vol. 27, No. 3, 39-43.

Broadbent, D.E., and Broadbent, M.H.P. (1978): The allocation of descriptor terms by individuals in a

simulated retrieval system. Ergonomics, 21,343-354.

Carroll, J.M. (1982): Learning, using and designing filenames and command paradigms. Behaviour and

Information Technology, 1(4), 327-346.

Carroll, J.M. (1985): What's in a name?: An essay in the psychology of reference. W.H. Freeman and

Co., New York.

Jones, W.P. and Dumais, S.T. (1986): The spatial metaphor for user interfaces: Experimental tests of

reference by location versus name. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, Vol. 4,

No. 1,pp. 42-63.

Kirsh, D.(1995): The intelligent use of space.Artificial Intelligence, 73,31-68.

Lansdale, M.W.(1991): Remembering about documents: memory for appearance, format, and location.

Ergonomics, Vol. 34, No. 8. 1161-1178.

Malone, T.W. (1983): How do people organise their desks? Implications for the design of office

information systems. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, 1, 99-112. Scapin, D.L. (1982): Generation effect, structuring and computer commands. Behaviour and

Information Technology, Vol. 1, No. 4, 401-410.