Human-computer interaction in office work: Evaluation of interaction patterns using office equipment and software during data entry and navigation

Abstract

This paper presents a study which objective was to investigate the human interaction with the equipment of an office workstation (mouse, keyboard, monitor, paper sheets, pens and calculator) during the activities of reading, writing, data entry and navigation in a computer system for long periods of time and with ecological validation. A sample of 22800 observations, which corresponds to 760 work-hours of 30 office workers, was classified into sixteen Interaction's Categories (IC). The results show that the participants read on the monitor more than on paper and they had a larger use of the mouse instead of the keyboard. Findings of this study allow suggesting what graphical interface designers must seek for new strategies and solutions to reduce the mouse need, exploring other peripherals as keyboard or voice recognition devices; or, at least, diminishing the amplitude of movement with the mouse during the interaction with office's software like the Microsoft® Office 2003. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.