Comparing Behavior at Various Computer Display Consoles in Time-Shared Legal Information.
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An experiment at Yale Law School in searching for legal precedents on the Mead Data Central time-shared information retrieval system. Subjects used either a teletype or the complicated-to-use CCI video console to access the 300,000,000 character Ohio Bar Association database. The UCLA BIOMED multiple discriminant program was used to analyze the results. Contrary to expectations, subjects spent more time at the video console, despite the longer transmission time of the teletype. More cases were retrieved and browsed at the video console, relevance scores were higher, and subjects were more satisfied. They also made 300 percent more errors. Relevance correlated highly with number of cases retrieved and negatively with time spent searching--contrary to the beliefs of system designers who limit retrieval to save time. Those who retrieved least information took the longest time and achieved the lowest relevance scores. The negative relation between time and relevance is even more marked for the video console users. 46 pp. Ref.
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