I recently did some LEXIS and WESTLAW searches for a professor. He thanked me
for the printouts I gave him, and then made some interesting observations
about the format of the Legal Resource Index citation list from LEXIS. I
guess I'm so used to the printouts (and so thankful for our standalone
printer) that I hadn't thought much about how the citations appear. Here
are the professor's observations:
. . . I have been giving some thought this year to clear
> computer-screen presentations. I attended a lecture in Balitmore a couple
> of weeks ago by Professor Edward Tufte of the Yale faculty who writes on
> visual presentation of information. He used a New York railroad time table
> as an example of least usable presentation he had found, with lots of
> administrative information about each train (of no interest to passengers)
> place prominently at the head of columns. Passengers had to read through
> a lot of that chaff to find the wheat they needed.
>
> Tufte should look at a Lexis/Nexis printout. Is there some reason, do you
> suppose, why the user has to read through two lines of administrative
> stuff to get to the date, subject and author of a reference? It makes
> scanning (which is how most users use a list of this sort) very slow.
> Compare how the Lexis wizards do it:
>
> LGIND/LEGAL RESOURCE INDEX (TM) Copyright (c) 1992 Information Access
> Co., How effective is computer assisted instruction; an evaluation for
> legal educators, Journal of Legal Education, Vol 41, No 3-4, pp 489-501,
> September, 1991, 12481844.
>
> with how anyone with a particle of concern for the user would do it:
>
> 1991, How Effective is Computer Assisted Instruction; An Evaluation
> for Legal Educators, Teich, Paul F., 41 J. Leg. Ed. 489-501;
> Lgind/Legal Resource Index (tm) copyright (c) 1992 Information
> Access Co., 12481844.
>
> Same space, same cost, same legal protection, just signifcantly different
> convenience to the user. And Westlaw isn't much better. Grrr.
>
Mary Whisner, Head of Reference Telephone: (206) 543-6794
Gallagher Law Library FAX: (206) 685-2165
University of Washington Internet: whisner@u.washington.edu
1100 NE Campus Pkwy, JB-20
Seattle, WA 98105
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