Evaluation of Human performance in Data Entry tasks: Effect of Time Pressure and Complexity

K. Kalyanasundaram¹, Dr. P. Balasubramanian¹and Dr. R. Bishu²

¹Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore, India

²University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Abstract

Data entry is used continuously in all industrial sectors.  Typing numbers and alphanumeric data is such a mundane task that it may not merit a second glance. However in a financial services transaction processing, this data entry task can lead to huge losses and hence sometimes 200 to 300 % inspection / checking carried out with considerable manual effort. Naturally, when it comes to entering numbers, humans are prone to make errors, but—astonishingly—many systems make no effort to detect or manage possible errors, causing incorrect and unpredictable results. Systems should be designed to manage errors, as errors will always eventually occur regardless of user skill or training. Although human factors research on human errors in cognitive tasks in plenty in search and identification tasks, published studies are few and far in between on error in data entry tasks. Data entry is the main activity in all transactional processing and analytical processing.  A controlled experiment was performed. The main task was data entry; independent factors were time pressure, complexity and experience. Thirty participants participated  Results show that Time pressure and complexity induces more error.  Recommendations are made on system improvement to manage these errors.