The effects of a system echo in a restricted natural language database interface for novice users

A system echo is a structured restatement of the user´s query and informs the user what the system intends to do for the query. This provides backtracking of the user´s query so that the user knows how the system has interpreted the query. This study scrutinizes whether the system echo, as currently available in the Intellect commercial system, can improve the performance of a novice using a restricted natural language database interface. The results indicate that the system echo of Intellect does not improve the performance of novice users in terms of error recovery rate and confidence.<>