Survey Of Public-Access Information-Retrieval Systems

A London HCI Centre (LHC) project to produce a user interface development environment for screen-based, nondirect manipulation, public use computer systems is described. A survey of available public access computer systems was undertaken to characterize and critically assess the usability of current designs. That part of the survey relating to four particular information retrieval systems is presented. Some serious weaknesses in the user interfaces to these systems are highlighted along with recommendations for improvements. The paper concludes with a general discussion of the major areas of weakness and how human factors guidelines can be used to improve usability.