paradox of the active user（活跃用户的悖论）.pdfVIP

5 Paradox of the Active User 1 John M. Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson 1 Introduction One of the most sweeping changes ever in the ecology of human cognition may be taking place today. People are beginning to learn and use very powerful and sophisticated information processing technology as a matter of daily life. From the perspective of human history, this could be a transitional point dividing a period when machines merely helped us do things from a period when machines will seriously help us think about things. But if this is so, we are indeed still very much within the transition. For most people, computers have more possibility than they have real practical utility. In this chapter we discuss two empirical phenomena of computer use: (1) people have considerable trouble learning to use computers (e.g., Mack, Lewis and Carroll, 1983; Mantei and Haskell, 1983), and (2) their skill tends to asymptote at relative mediocrity (Nielsen, Mack, Bergendorff, and Grischkowsky, 1986; Pope, 1985; Rosson, 1983). These phenomena could be viewed as being due merely to “bad” design in current systems. We argue that they are in part more fundamental than this, deriving from conflicting motivational and cognitive strategies. Accordingly, (1) and (2) are best viewed not as design problems to be solved, but as true paradoxes that necessitate programmatic tradeoff solutions. A motivational paradox arises in the “production bias” people bring to the task of learning and using computing equipment. Their paramount goal is throughput. This is a desirable state of affairs in that it gives users a focus for their activity with a system, and it increases their likelihood