Effects of positional correlations on time order assessment.

E. Nygren, A. Allard, M. Lind

Report no. 58, CMD, Uppsala University, 1995.

Abstract

In field studies of computer users at work we had observed that the assessment of order in time between events in graphs and time lists was regarded more effortful in a computerised situation compared to when the same information was read from paper sheets. In an experiment we investigated assessment of order in time between one graph event and one list event. In one condition the time list was presented so that there was a correlation between the position of an event item and the time of the event. In another condition the list was presented without such a correlation. The results show that the task was performed significantly faster if there was a correlation between position and time. This result explains why the computer lists were consid ered effortful to use, since the time lists were presented without any correlation between position and time. in the formerly used paper lists however, there were such a correlation.