THE EFFECT OF COMPLEXITY OF SOFTWARE-SYST EMS ON ERRORS FOR COMPUTER NOVICES AND EXPERTS

The complexity of office software is increasing continuously. It is su pposed that problems of usage and error probabilities are increasing a s a result of this development. In an experiment the effect of complex ity in a text editing system and the expertise of users on errors was investigated. Because of little practice and knowledge it was supposed that errors are more probable for novices than for expert users as a result of complexity. Results of our investigation show that complexit y per se does not lead to higher error frequencies. Only for computer novices more mistakes and inefficient usage due to complexity were reg istered. The interaction of expertise and complexity is significant as well. it is concluded that broad functionality is not a quality crite rion of software-systems by itself, bur that it might lead to excessiv e complexity and higher risk for errors as well as inefficient usage o f software-systems in the case of novice users.