NATURAL LANGUAGE AND COMPUTER INTEBFACE DESIGN 
MURRAY TUROFF 
DEPARTMENT OF COMPU%'z~ AND IiVFORMATION SCIENCE 
IIEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 
SOME ICONOCLASTIC ASSERTIONS 
Considering the problems we have in communicating with 
other h~rmans using natural language, it is not clear 
that we want to recreate these problems in dealing with 
the computer. While there is some evidence that natur- 
al language is useful in communications among humans, 
there is also considerable evidence that it is neither 
perfect nor ideal. Natural language is wordy (redun- 
dant) and imprecise. Most b,*m,m groups who have a need 
to communicate quickly and accurately tend to develop a 
rather well specified subset of natural language that 
is highly coded and precise in nature. Pilots and po- 
lice are good examples of this. Even working groups 
within a field or discipline tend over time to develop 
a jargon that minimizes the effort of communication and 
clarifies shared precise meanings. 
It is not clear that there is any group of humans or 
applications for computers that would be better served 
in the long run by natural language interfaces. One 
could provide such an interface for the purpose of ac- 
climating a group or individual to a computer or in- 
formation system environment but over the long run it 
would be highly inefficient for a h,mAn to continue to 
use such an interface and would in a real sense be a 
disservice to the user. Those retrieval systems that 
allow natural language like queries tend to also allow 
the user to discover with practice the embedded inter- 
face that allows very terse and concise requests to be 
made of the system. Take the general example of COBOL, 
which was designed as a language to input business 
oriented programs into a computer that could be under- 
stood by non-computer types. We find that if we don't 
de,and that progrmmmers follow certain standards to 
make this possible, they will make their programs 
cryptic to the point where it is not understandable to 
anyone but other progro,,mers. 
It is interesting to observe that successful inter- 
faces between persona and machines tend to be based 
upon one or the other of the two extreme choices one 
can make in designing a language. One is small, well 
defined vocabularies from which one can build rather 
long and complex expressions and the other is large 
vocabularies with short expressions. In some sense, 
"natural language" is the result of a compromise be- 
tween these two opposing extremes. If we had same 
better understanding of the cognitive dynamics that 
shape and evolve natural language, perhaps the one 
useful natural language interface that migjat be de- 
veloped would allow individuals and groups to shape 
their own personalized interface to a computer or in- 
formation system. I em quite sure that given such a 
powerful capability, what a group of users would end 
up with would be very far from a natural language. 
The argument is sometimes made that a natural language 
interface might be useful for those who are linguisti- 
cally disadvantaged. It might allow very young child- 
ten or deaf persons to better utilize the computer. I 
see it as immoral to provide a natural language intro- 
duction to computers to people who might mistakenly 
come to think of a computer as they would another hu- 
man being. I would much prefer such individuals to be 
introduced to the computer with an interface that will 
give them some appreciation for the nature of the ma- 
chine. For example, a very simple CAI language called 
PILOT has been used to teach grammar school children 
how to write simple lessons for their classmates. The 
ability of the young children to write simple question 
answer sequences and then see them executed as if the 
computer was able to use natural language is, I be- 
lieve, far more beneficial to the child than giving 
him canned lessons as his or her first impression of 
what a computer is like. 
COMPUTERIZED CONFERENCING 
Since 1973 at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, 
we have been developing and evaluating the use of a 
computer as a direct aid to facilitating human communi- 
cation. The basic idea is to use the processing and 
logical capabilities of the computer to aid in the 
communication and exchange of written text (Hiltz & 
Turoff, 1978). As part of this program we have been 
operating the Electronic Information Exchange System 
(EIES) as a source of field trial data and as a labora- 
tory for controlled experimentation. Currently, EIES 
has approximately 600 active users internationally. 
Our current rate of operation is about 5,000 user hours 
a month; 8,000 messages, conference c~-,-ents and note- 
book pages written a month and about 35,000 delivered 
each month. The average message is about l0 lines of 
text and the average comment or page is about 20 lines 
of text. 
EIES offers the user a complete set of differing inter- 
faces including menus, commands, self-defined commands 
and self progra,,m4ng of interfaces for individuals and 
groups. In addition to the standard message, confer- 
ence and notebook features, EIES has been designed with 
the incorporation of a computer language called "INTE~- 
ACT" that allows special communication structtkres and 
data structures to be integrated into the application 
of any specific group. Much of this capability has 
evolved since 1976 through a numerous set of alterna- 
tive feedback and evaluation mechanisms. Our users 
include scientists, engineers, managers, secretaries, 
teenagers, students, Cerebral Palsy children and 80 
year old senior citizens. In all this experience we 
have yet to hear a direct request or even implicit 
desire for any sor~ of natural language like interface. 
To the contrary, we have indirect empirical data that 
supports the premise that a natural language llke 
interface would be a disadvantage. For the most 
• part, the behavior of users on EIES is very sensitive 
to the degree of experience they have had with the 
system. However, there is one key parameter which is 
insensitive to the degree, of experience or the rate 
of use of the system. This is the number of items a 
user receives when he or she sits down at the terminal 
to use the system. This number stays at around 7 plus 
or minus 2. This is obviously a prescriptive effect 
the system has on the user as they get into the habit 
of signing on often enough so that they will not have 
more than around 7 new text items waiting for them. 
Users who have been cut off for a long period by a 
broken terminal or a vacation that denies them access 
usually give ou~ textual screams of "information over- 
load" when they find tons of tex~ items waiting for 
them. In a real sense, it is natural language that is 
generating this information overload for the user. 
Another pertinent observation is that each user has 
three unique identifiers; a full name, a short nicK- 
name, and a three digit number. Some users always use 
nicknames and some always use numbers to address their 
messages but I have yet to encounter anyone who uses 
full heroes on a regular basis. 
AUTOMATED ABSTRACTING 
Our observations do point to one application where the 
ability to process natural language would be a signi- 
ficemt augmentation of the users cf computerized ccn- 
ferencing systems. We have a large number of confer- 
ences that have been going on for over a year and which 
conta/n thousands of comments. While a person entering 
such an on-going discussion can, in principle, go back 
and read the entire transcript or do selective retriev- 
al on subtopics, it would be far preferable to be able 
to generate autc~a~ic summaries of such large text 
files. Even for regular use, the ability to zet auto- 
mated su.~maries would significantly raise the threshold 
of information overload and allow users to increase 
their level of co.-.unication activity and the amount of 
information with which they can deal meaningfully. 
The goal of being able to process natural language has 
always been a bit of a siren's call and has a cerma.in 
note of purity about it. Those striving for it some- 
times lose sight of the fact thst an imperfect system 
may still be quite useful when the perfect system may 
be unobtainable for some time. One of the important 
problems well recognized in the computer field is 
teaching computers how to "forget" or eliminate gar- 
bage. A less well recognized problem is the one of 
teaching a computer how to "give up" gracefully and go 
to a human to get help. In other words, the natural 
language systems that may have significant payoff in 
the next decade are those that blend the best talents 
of man and m~chine into one working unit. 
In the computerized conferencing environment, this means 
that a person requesting a su~ of s long conference 
probably knows enough about the substance to guide the 
computer in the process and to tailor the summary to 
particular needs and interests. In computerized con- 
ferencing, the ultimate goal is "collective intelli- 
gence" and one hopes that the apprcpriate design of a 
communication structure will allow a group of humans to 
pool their intelligence into something greater than any 
of its par~s. If there is an automated or artificial 
intelligence system, then providing that system as a 
tool to a group of humans as an integral par~ of their 
group communication structure, the resulting intelli- 
gence of the group should be greater than the auto- 
mated system alone. I believe ,a similar observation 
holds for the processing of natural language. Too often 
those working in natural language seem to feel that in- 
tegrating humans into the analysis process would be an 
impurity or contaminant. In fact, it may be the higher 
goal than mere automation. 
WRITING STYLE 
A related area with respect to computerized confer- 
encing is the observation that the style of writing in 
this medium of co~mluicaticn differs from other uses 
of the written or spoken version of natural language. 
First of all, there is a strong tendency to be concise 
and to outline complex discussions. We can observe 
this directly in the field trials and also observe that 
users bring group pressure upon those who star~ to 
write verbose items or items off the subject of inter- 
est to the group. The mechanism most commonly em- 
ployed is the anonymous message. Also, in cur con- 
trolled experiments on h,..an problem solving (Hiltz, 
et ai, 1980) we have found that there is no differ- 
ence in the quality of a solution reached in a face-to- 
face environment or in a computerized conferencing en- 
vironment. However, we do observ~ that the computer- 
ized conferencing groups use appro imately 60% fewer 
words to do just as good a Job as the face-to-face 
groups. Using Bales Interaction Process Analyses 
(content analyses), we have also confirmed signifi- 
cant differences in the content of the communica~ious. 
New users go through a learning period in which it may 
take l0 to 20 hours tc feel comfortable in writing in 
conferences. We feel this is due to the subconscious 
recognition that people wTite differently in t2~is 
medium than in letters, memos or other forms of the 
written language. The majority of what a new user 
writes (95%) will be messsges the first five hours of 
usage and it takes about i00 hours until 25% of their 
writings are in conferences. Also, it is about i00 
hours before they feel comfortable in wTiting larger 
tex~ items in notebooks. One other aspect in the style 
change is ~he incorporation cf many non-verbal ques 
into written form (HA' HA', for example). One cannot 
see the nod of the head or hear a gentle laugh. 
Another aspect of natural language processing ~t can 
aid users in this form of ccamunications is help in 
overcoming learnin~ curves of this sor~ by being able 
to process the tex~ of a group and provide a ecmpara- 
tire analysis to new members of a group so ~hey can 
more quickly learn the style of the group and feel eel- 
for%able in cm~mmnicating with the group. One can 
carry this f~er and ask for abilities to deal in 
certain levels cf emotion such as : I would like to 
make my statement sound more anser%-lve. 
CONCLUSION 
I do believe that this form of human cn""u~icatlon will 
become as widespread and as significant as the phone 
has been to our society. The ~t~e application of 
natural language processing really lies in this area; 
however, it is not in the interface to the cure,purer 
that this futttre rests but rather on the ability of 
this field to provide h~-ns direct aids in processing 
the tex~ found in their c~-w, unications. Perhaps the 
real subject tc address is not the one with which this 
panel was titled but the problems e{ person-machine 
interface to natural language processing systems. Or, 
better yet, person-machine integration within natural 
language processing. The computer processing of natur- 
al language needs to becume the tool of the wTiter, 
editor, translator and reader. It also has to aid us 
in improving our ability to co~unicate. Most organi- 
zations are run on cammunications and the lore that is 
contained in those c~---unications. With the increasing 
use of camputers as communication devices, the qualita- 
tive information upon which we depend becomes as avail- 
able for processing as the quantitative has been. 
Re ference : 
THE NETWORK NATION: H,---~ C--munication Via Computer, 
Start Rcxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff, Addison-Wesley 
Advanced Book Program, 1978. 
FACE TO FACE VS. COMPUTERIZED CON~It~NCING: A con- 
trolled Experiment, Hiltz, Johnson, Aronovitch and 
Turoff, Report of the C~uterized Confereneing and 
Communications Center, NJ!T, January 1980. 
