Exercise 4: Prototyping Flashcards
1
Q
Nielsen’s 10 heuristics
A
- Meet expectations
- Match the real world
- Consistency & standards
- Help & documentation
- The user is the boss
- User control & freedom
- Visibility of system status
- Flexibility & efficiency
- Handle errors
- Error prevention
- Recognition, not recall
- Error reporting, diagnosis, and recovery
- Keep it simple
10. Aesthetic & minimalist design
2
Q
- Match the real world
A
- Speak the user‘s language
- Use common words, not techie jargon
- Use application domain-specific terms where appropriate
- Don’t put limits on user-defined names
- Example: 8 character limit on filenames is bad
- Allow aliases/synonyms in command languages
- Different users rarely agree on the same name for an object or command
- Use metaphors
- A well-chosen metaphor can be quite effective and appealing.
3
Q
- Consistency and Standards
A
- Principle of Least Surprise
- Similar things should look and act similar
- Different things should look different
- Other properties
- Consistent size, location, color, wording, ordering, …
- “share price” in one place, “stock price” in another, and “stock quote” in a third
- Command/argument order
- Noun-verb order
- Verb-noun order
- Follow platform standards
- Mouse based vs touch based
- Natural scrolling
4
Q
- Help and Documentation
A
- Users don’t read manuals
- They prefer to spend time working toward their task goals, not learning about your system
- But manuals and online help are vital
- Usually used when user is frustrated or in crisis
- Help should be: Searchable Context-sensitive Task-oriented Concrete Short
5
Q
- User Control and Freedom
A
- Also called “Clearly Marked Exits”
- Users should be able to explore the interface
- A good user interface provides a undo command
- Users should not feel trapped by the interface Long operations should be interruptible
- All dialogs should have a cancel button.
6
Q
- Visibility of System Status
A
- Keep user informed of system state Cursor change
- Spinning wheel
- Selection highlight
- Status bar
- Don’t overdo it…
- Response time
- < 0.1 sec: seems instantaneous
- 0.1-1 sec: user notices, but no feedback needed
- 1-5 sec: display busy cursor
- > 1-5 sec: display progress bar
7
Q
- Flexibility and Efficiency
A
- Provide shortcuts for frequent operations Keyboard accelerators
- Command abbreviations
- Styles
- Bookmarks History
8
Q
- Error Prevention
A
- Selection is less error-prone than typing
- Misspellings become impossible
- But don’t go overboard…
- Disable illegal commands
- Example: Copy is impossible if nothing is selected
- Avoid modes
9
Q
- Recognition, Not Recall
A
- Use menus, not command languages
- Use combo boxes, not text boxes
- Use generic (polymorphic) commands where possible
- Open, Save, Copy & Paste
- All needed information should be visible.
10
Q
- Error Reporting, Diagnosis, and Recovery
A
- Be precise; restate user’s input
- Not “Cannot open file”, but “Cannot open file named paper.doc”
- Give constructive help
- why the error occurred and how to fix it
- Be polite and non blaming
- Not “fatal error”, not “illegal command”
- Hide technical details (stack trace) until requested.
11
Q
- Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
A
- Good design is about Simplicity
- “Less is More”
- Omit extraneous info, graphics, features
- Especially important on mobile devices!
- Good graphic design
- Few, well-chosen colors and fonts
- Follow color guidelines
- Group with whitespace
- Align controls sensibly
- Use concise language
- Choose labels carefully
12
Q
Heuristic Evaluation
A
- Heuristic Evaluation is an application of Nielsen’s 10 heuristics
- Heuristic Evaluation is an inspection method
- Different from user testing
- Similar to the difference between code inspection and testing
- Performed by a usability expert
- Basic steps
- Evaluator inspects the User Interface thoroughly
- Compares User Interface against the 10 heuristics
- Provides a list of usability problems.
13
Q
Good Heuristic Evaluation
A
- Justify every problem with a heuristic
- You cannot just say “I don’t like the colors”
- “Too many choices on the home page violates Nr. 10 Aesthetic & Minimalist Design”
- List every problem
- If an interface element has multiple problems, list them all
- Go through the interface at least twice
- Once to get the feel of the system
- Again to focus on particular interface elements
- Don’t limit yourself to the 10 heuristics
- Nielsen’s heuristics are a good start to compare against
- But consider also limitations of humans in general, consider affordances, constraints, Fitts’s Law, perceptual fusion, color principles
14
Q
Prototyping Definition
A
- “Prototyping is externalizing and making concrete a design idea for the purpose of evaluation.“ (Bill Verplank in Muñoz & Miller-Jacobs, 1992, S. 579)
- „Prototypes are for traversing a design space, leading to the creation of meaningful knowledge about the final design […], and are purposefully formed manifestations of design ideas.“ (Lim et al., 2008, S. 3)
- “A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.” (Wikipedia)
15
Q
Horizontal vs. Vertical Prototype
A
- Horizontal Prototypes
- Show wide range of features
- Horizontal integration: Bottom Up, Top Down
- Used in linear processes: No full implementation up to the end
- Executable Prototype
- Database
- Vertical Prototypes
- Show small range of features (scenario, user story)
- Full implementation of these features
- Vertical Integration
- Used in agile processes
