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What affected the use of the system?: Functionality and usability

It was acknowledged by everybody that version I was too slow (00992, 00505, 00681, 00474) and one of the aims of phase II was to improve performance (00596). On the client they did this by preloading screens (01042) which cut down the typical screen change from 28 to 3 seconds (01004, 01044) although reports were still especially slow (eg a report could take 15-20 minutes - 00582). This performance improvement was achieved at the expense of system start up time. The users did not seem overly concerned by the longer start up time although it did mean that it was impractical to use the system to answer phone calls (00690) unless they stayed logged in which they were not supposed to do. Users still felt the system was too slow (00682, 00631) and the Unix migration did nothing to improve it - although it did not get any worse (00760, 01064).

Social influence:
Technical influence:
System characteristics: Performance

Commentary
Social influence
Technical influence

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© Clare Tagg 2000