Composing Letters with Computer-Based Text Editors

This experiment studies how people compose letters using computer-based text editors, and compares the results with longhand writing of similar letters. Ten IBM Research professionals who regularly use computer- based text editors composed 4 letters with each method. These participants were videotaped while they composed (Figure 1), and their interactions with the text-editor were automatically time-stamped for later analyses. These participants generally used either Redit or Edit, both of which are line-oriented text editors.

Results (Table 1) showed that participants spent two-thirds of their time “planning” their text-edited letters (just as was found in previous experiments for writing, dictating, and speaking). Text-edited letters required 50 per cent more time to compose than did written letters. This was due in part to more changes, difficulties in formatting, text positioning, and reviewing and modifying the formatted version of text-edited letters (Table 2). These results are discussed in some detail in a technical report available from the author, and they will appear in Human Factors journal in late 1981.