Seven users expressed some view on this. Two mentioned that they liked the windowing environment and the fact that the mouse was available. One liked the fact that it was quicker than other systems they had used. One user, who had seen both probabilistic systems and systems incorporating a thesaurus, found it similar to others he had used before. One user said that it was slower than other systems he had used and another that it was more complex. Another mentioned several systems that were better than ENQUIRE, although she said that ENQUIRE was better than the existing London Business School library catalogue.
No facility for carrying out a new search was available in this implementation. In order to do this, the user would have needed to quit the system and the experimenter to type in a command at the Unix shell prompt to start it up again. Several users expressed a wish to begin a new search, either because they had several distinct searches they wanted to carry out or because they had got stuck with their search and wished to start again with the same query.
Using the printer caused considerable difficulties. Because of the way ENQUIRE was connected to the LBS network, it was not possible to access information about printing and this became a great source of frustration to users. Several had to rerun a search (with the aid of the experimenter) and write down details of their selected books.
Some of the problems discussed above could be overcome by changing aspects of the interface. Others may not matter. For example, understanding some aspect of the system's functionality may not be essential for its successful usage. Provided the user is satisfied with the result, he need not worry about how it is actually working.