ABSTRACT
An understanding of people and the problems people encounter in tasks of information processing can guide us not only in the design of the interface to a computing system but also in the initial selection of this system’s application. Additional possibilities for an interplay between basic research into human information processing and applied efforts to build more useable (and useful) computing systems may exist to the extent that there is a similarity of task considerations. In this chapter we explore some of the task considerations that are in effect in the operation of a personal filing system and we note their similarities to considerations surrounding the actions of human memory. The possibility is raised that many constructs found in models of human memory may have application in computer-based systems of information retrieval. In the other direction, it is possible that insights gained from efforts to build better computer-based systems of information retrieval may increase our understanding of human memory.
