304 Human– Computer etiquette
e context in the Communications Scheduler experiment,
reported in this chapter, was relatively realistic, while not completely
real; subjects moved through a real eld, but the “people” with whom
they interacted were only recordings. Our experience indicated that
at least ve simultaneous tasks would be required to seriously tax
subjects’ cognitive resources, and only when those tasks were made
particularly dicult (for example, by increasing the rate at which the
messages were delivered).
Following is a more detailed description of the ve tasks used in
the experiment:
1. Navigation. Participants were asked to walk along a simple,
familiar, and well marked route during each trail. e par-
ticipants wer ...