Exam Questions

Question 1

Define the term ‘interaction design’ and briefly state what it aims to achieve.

Answer 1

Interaction design is the designing of interactive products to support the way people communicate and act in their everyday and working lives. It aims to develop interactive products that are easy to learn, effective to use and provide an enjoyable user experience.

Question 2

List three examples of poor interaction design from a car dashboard. Include a brief justification for each of your example choices.

Answer 2

It is difficult to see the speedometer when driving because the steering wheel is in the way (and its height cannot be adjusted sufficiently). This can make it difficult to keep to speed limits.
It is difficult to operate the radio because the mobile telephone holder hangs over the top of one of the controls. This is unavoidable because of the design of the holder. This means sometimes I am distracted when driving along, which can be dangerous.
The icons, although standard car icons, confuse me. For example, the icon of an oil can does not illustrate any oil can that I have ever used on a car engine. This is a problem when the warning light flashes, as it means that sometimes I am unsure what is being indicated and hence what I need to do.

Question 3

Define the usability goal: utility.

Answer 3

Utility The extent to which the system provides the right kind of functionality, so that the users can do what they need or want to do.

Question 4

Define the usability goal: efficiency.

Answer 4

Efficiency How well the system supports users in carrying out their tasks. Does it allow users to sustain a high level of productivity?

Question 5

Why might it be necessary to make a trade-off between utility and efficiency when designing interaction?

Answer 5

Trade-off If users need to carry out a wide range of tasks (utility), this could make carrying out some tasks more time-consuming (reducing efficiency). For example, increasing utility might deepen a menu hierarchy, making it more time-consuming to locate and select the necessary menu item.

Question 6

Complete the following figure which shows the simple interaction design model underlying M364. You should add five labels to the diagram: one for each oval and one for the far right-hand arrow.

Answer 6

1. Identify needs/ establish requirements
2. (Re)Design
3. Build an interactive version
4. Evaluate
   Final product

Question 7

An individual’s beliefs, values and assumptions may be influenced by many different factors. One of these factors is the individual’s national culture. List four others.

Answer 7

(a) Factors which could influence a person’s values, beliefs and assumptions include:
Four from:
Their age; gender; profession; culture of the organisation in which they are employed; their religion; ethnicity.

Question 8

(b)
For each of the following cases, determine which of these five factors an interaction designer should take most account of. Include a brief justification for each of your answers. (i) an intranet for Microsoft employees (ii) a website for a particular UK political party (iii) a website giving advice on nutrition.

Answer 8

(b) (i) organisational culture, since this is the most salient common factor of the intended audience of the website. [1]
(ii) national culture, since the party presumably aims to appeal to anyone in the UK over the age of 18. [1]
(iii) one of: national culture, religion or ethnicity. Any one of these will influence the choice of examples of food which satisfy particular nutritional properties.

Question 9

State one advantage and one disadvantage of each of the following methods for gathering requirements:
(a) computer data logs
Advantage:
Disadvantage:

Answer 9

Computer data logs: An advantage is that the use of computer data logs doesn’t disturb the user. A disadvantage is that there is often a plethora of probably irrelevant data.

Question 10

video recordings of naturalistic activity
Advantage:
Disadvantage:

Answer 10

Video recordings of naturalistic activity: An advantage is that these may record a naturalistic context. One disadvantage is that they can be difficult to analyse.

Question 11

focus groups. [6]
Advantage:
Disadvantage:

Answer 11

Focus groups: An advantage is that they might provide an opportunity for potential conflicts to be resolved. A disadvantage is that they might be dominated by one individual.

Question 12

List four reasons why asking users what they want from a particular interactive product does not suffice in gathering an initial set of requirements.

Answer 12

The users may not know what they want except in the most general terms.
•
The users may not know what is technologically possible.
•
The users may need to be prompted by a concrete artefact.
•
For political or other reasons, the users may feel unhappy to articulate their requirements.
•
They may be too fixated on what they currently do and not be able to think of alternative ways of supporting their task.

Question 13

What are the four components of an interactive product that should be described in the product’s conceptual model?

Answer 13

1.
The major design metaphors and analogies used in the product
2.
The concepts that users are exposed to through the product
3.
The relationships between those concepts
4.
The mappings between the concepts and the user experience the product is designed to support or invoke.

Question 14

Explain the following statement: ‘The conceptual model of an interactive system is not the user interface’.

Answer 14

The conceptual model is not the user interface, because the interface is only one implementation of a conceptual model and there will be many possible implementations.

Question 15

Define the cognitive process of attention.

Answer 15

The cognitive process of attention is the process of selecting things to concentrate on at a point in time from the range of possibilities available.

Question 16

Describe two distinct ways in which a design can take account of the limitations of human attention.

Answer 16

Two distinct ways in which a design can take account of the limitations of human attention are: [2]
1.
Make information salient when it needs attending to at a given stage of a task.
2.
Avoid cluttering the interface with too much information.

Question 17

Choose one of these ways and describe an example from your experience where this way has been well catered for.

Answer 17

I choose avoiding clutter. Google is a good example of an interface with little clutter. It has one field in the middle of the screen for entering the search term, several tabs to choose between categories of document to retrieve, a large ‘Google’ in bright colours at the top, and the rest is white space.

Question 18

Explain three advantages and three disadvantages of low-fidelity compared to high-fidelity prototyping.

Answer 18

1.
Low-fidelity prototyping is cheaper than high-fidelity prototyping, and so multiple low-fidelity prototypes can be developed and evaluated cheaply.
2.
Low-fidelity prototypes are more efficient for testing multiple design concepts.
3.
Low-fidelity prototypes can be easily and quickly modified in response to user feedback, and re-evaluated.
1.
Low-fidelity prototypes include limited error checking, as they don’t reflect the implemented design.
2.
Low-fidelity prototypes require a facilitator to ‘drive’ the prototype for the user, so the user has to rely on the facilitator.
3.
Low-fidelity prototypes have limited usefulness for user testing, in that various aspects of the design are not implemented.

Question 19

List five different categories of evaluation methods.

Answer 19

1.
Observing users
2.
Asking users their opinions
3.
Asking experts their opinions
4.
Testing users’ performance
5.
Modelling users’ task performance to predict the efficacy of a user interface.

Question 20

The think-aloud technique is often used in evaluation studies.
(a)
Describe the think-aloud technique.

Answer 20

(a) The think-aloud technique requires a participant to say out loud everything they are thinking and trying to do during an activity, so that their thought processes are externalised.

Question 21

Consider the use of the think-aloud technique in each of the following evaluation approaches: usability testing, field studies and analytical evaluation. What kind of insights would this technique produce in each case? [3]
Usability testing:
Field studies:
Analytical evaluation

Answer 21

Usability testing: insight into users’ thought processes while they perform specific tasks in a controlled environment
Field studies: insight into users’ thought processes while they perform their normal tasks in their natural setting
Analytical evaluation: in this approach, experts are the participants and so you would gain insights into the application of the analytical method rather than the product being evaluated.

Question 22

Suggest two user performance measures which could be taken during user
testing.

Answer 22

The performance measures taken during user testing are (two examples from):
•
the time taken to complete a typical task or tasks
•
the number of errors made while performing a task
•
number of navigations to online help or manuals.

Question 23

Briefly describe three possible sources of bias for evaluation findings.

Answer 23

Users. If your participants don’t match your user profile, you may get unexpected
and/or misleading results.
Evaluation tasks. Tasks chosen may not be representative of the tasks which the
interactive product is designed to support.
Test setting. The location where evaluations are done may not match with the
location where the interactive design is designed to be used.
Evaluator/observer bias. Participant’s behaviour may alter in the presence of the
evaluator; the evaluator may introduce bias e.g. by asking leading questions.
Methodology. For example, using ‘think-aloud’ may alter the normal form of working;
an experiment may be biased due to learning effects.
Reporting/analysis. This might be biased by the evaluator’s prior experience.

Question 24

How does a use case differ from an essential use case?

Answer 24

A use case describes the interaction between a user and the system as a sequence of low-level actions. An essential use case is at a higher level than a use case, allocating subtasks according to the user’s intentions and the system’s responsibilities.

Question 25

You have video recorded a user using the existing system. Describe four indications on the video that the user is having problems with using the system.

Answer 25

Four indications such as the following: consulting manuals a lot; asking questions; showing hesitant or uncertain behaviour; having aide-memoires.

Question 26

Name and describe two interface types for interactive products other than the desktop with keyboard, mouse and monitor. Your answer should include an example of each.

Answer 26

Wearable interfaces are embedded in ‘wearable’ objects such as rings, earrings, pens, etc. For example, the MIT systems for Kio and Guy which include spectacles, rings, pens and a main pack that is worn around the waist.
For a tangible interface, computational augmentations are integrated into the physical environment. For example, the i/o brush which takes elements of the environment and uses them to draw pictures.
Mobile interfaces are designed for devices that are hand-held and intended to be used while on the move. One example is a mobile (cell) phone.
Shareable interfaces are designed for more than one person to use. For example, large wall-displays (Smartboards) where participants use pens or gestures to interact with the surface.
Augmented reality interfaces combine physical and digital information by superimposing virtual representations of an object onto its physical form. For example, in medical situations an X-ray may be overlaid on part of a patient’s body.

Question 27

Briefly describe the three stages of a heuristic evaluation.

Answer 27

1.
The briefing session
In this session, the evaluators are told what to do. A script should be prepared to guide the evaluation and to ensure that each evaluator receives the same briefing.
2.
The evaluation period
Here the evaluator(s) spend typically 1–2 hours inspecting the product. At least two passes through the product are taken: a first pass to assess the flow of the interaction and the scope of the product, and a second pass to focus on specific interface elements and to identify usability problems.
3.
The debriefing session
In this session the evaluator(s) discuss their findings, prioritise the problems they have found and make recommendations for change.

Question 28

Describe the participants for a heuristic evaluation.

Answer 28

Two or more experts would perform a heuristic evaluation. Ideally they would be expert in both interaction design and in the product domain, but this is rare.

Question 29

Give two problems that can arise from a heuristic evaluation.

Answer 29

Experts can miss severe problems.
•
Experts report problems that don’t exist.
•
Experts’ predictions are wrong in that they miss users’ problems.
•
Experts’ predictions were not problems at all, they were false
alarms.

Question 30

The illustration on the next page is the home page for an online trading
organisation, iPodWorld, as of June 2005. Discuss the figure with respect to each of Neilsen’s heuristics HOMERUN. As this is a static screenshot, you will have to make assumptions about the rest of the site. Where you think a heuristic is not relevant, you should say so. Your answer should include a clear statement of each heuristic. Justify your answers.

Answer 30

Here is my opinion as to how well iPodWorld satisfies Neilsen’s HOMERUN heuristics.
High-quality content. It can be seen from the different sections of the home page that this site can be used for buying different accessories for the various models of iPod available. The pictures are very high-quality and attractive, and the sections seem to be organised in a way that reflects what users may want from this site, such as: Accessories for particular iPods (‘Click on your iPod’); New products (or iPod add-ons); iPod ‘Favourites’, Sale items; Cases, In-car accessories, Shuffle accessories (a special section for the latest iPod to have been released); special headphones; and iPod ‘Top 10 Best Sellers’.
Often updated. This would be crucial for parts of this site; for example, sections such as ‘Top 10 Best Sellers’, Sale items, and perhaps ‘Favourites’ would probably be updated daily, while the other sections would be updated less frequently.