The Growth of Cognitive Modeling in Human-Computer Interaction Since GOMS

The purpose of this article is to review where we stand with regard to modeling the kind of cognition involved in human-computer interaction. Card, Moran, and Newell's pioneering work on cognitive engineering models and explicit analyses of the knowledge people need to perform a procedure was a significant advance from the kind of modeling cognitive psychology offered at the time. Since then, coordinated bodies of research have both confirmed the basic set of parameters and advanced the number of parameters that account for the time of certain component activities. Formal modeling in grammars and production systems has provided an account for error production in some cases, as well as a basis for calculating how long a system will take to learn and how much savings there is from previous learning. Recently, we were given a new tool for modeling nonsequential component processes, adapting the "critical path analysis" from engineering to the specification of interacting processes and their consequent durations. Though these advances have helped, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the whole process of interacting with computers. The cumulative nature of this empirical body and its associated modeling frarnework has further highlighted important issues central to research in cognitive Authors'presmt address: Judith Reitman Olson and Gary M. Olson, Cognitive Science and Machine Intelligence Laboratory, The University of Michigan, 701 Tappan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234.