Users´ Perceptions with Experimental Services and Terminals

An experimental access method has been designed to provide a "friendly" interface between a variety of telecommunications services and the user (the one served). The access software and an experimental teleterminal combine the concepts of selection from a menu, traversing a tree, and the relabeling of buttons. The casual observation over many initial users has produced a valuable, if not biased, experience. The purpose of this paper is to share this experience. A comparison is made between access of service by oral communication and by a typical interaction at a computer terminal. A number of conjectures and observations are presented in the areas of the organization and functionality of the access tree and the sense of "climbing" through it, utilization of the teleterminal\´s display screen, and a variety of user aids. The emotional nature of such human-machine systems and several emotional characteristics which can diminish the subject-user\´s objectivity are discussed.