ROLE OF EXPERIENCE IN EDITING.

An important question for designers of text-editing systems is the use to which the systems are put by experienced users. Most systems provide a range of function from basic to very advanced, yet their designers typically do not know whether users ultimately make use of the full range of function, or indeed whether they develop effective use of even the most basic function. In the present work, survey and automatic monitoring methodologies were combined to study experienced editor users. The two methods provided converging evidence that not all users learn to exploit a system's facilities simply through continued experience with the system. Many time-saving strategies (e. g. , assignment and use of program function keys) were associated with job type and with prior experience on other editing systems. The implications of the results for the design of editors are discussed.