Abstract
The work presented here demonstrates the use of Monte Carlo Simulation to explore the risks and benefits of transitioning a customer-service application from an older terminal-based architecture and character-based interface to a “thin-client” architecture and web-browser interface. Examples of both applications were modeled in order to examine the paradoxical relationship between human and computer resource efficiencies associated with the transition. Simulated trials of the web-based model predicted that the increase in page size (measured in bytes) associated with the newer model would have less of an effect on business productivity and customer experience than would a decrease in number of pages to be viewed or increased human information processing time due to increased data density per page. The collaboration between system and human factors engineers during the effort is discussed and recommendations are provided for design strategies focused on achieving balance between human and computer resource efficiencies.
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