Human Computer Interface

Question 1

Information visualisations allow people to?

Answer 1

Make sense and rapid decisions about masses of data

Question 2

Cognition involves several processes such as?

Answer 2

Attention, memory, perception and learning

Question 3

The way an interface is designed can greatly affect what?

Answer 3

How well users can perceive, attend, learn and remember how to do their tasks.

Question 4

Theoretical frameworks such as external cognition provide ways of?

Answer 4

Understanding how and why people interact with products, which can lead to thinking about how to design better products

Question 5

What are the three types of interviews?

Answer 5

Unstructured - Are not directed by a script. (Rich but not repeatable.)

Structured - Are tightly scripted. (Replicable but may lack richness.)

Semi-Structured - Guided by a script but interesting issues can be explored in more depth (Can provide a good balance between richness and replicability.)

Question 6

What is Ethnography?

Answer 6

Involves immersing a researcher in the everyday activities of an organization or society, usually for a prolonged period of time.

Question 7

What is an interface?

Answer 7

A layer of software, and/or hardware allowing the user toa ccess ther underlying computational functionality

Question 8

What is interaction design?

Answer 8

Designing interactive prodcuts to suppoert the way people communicate and interact in their everyday lives.

Question 9

Why is usability important?

Answer 9

Makes people’s work faster and easier

Makes people’s lives more enjoyable

Question 10

The UI development process includes four main steps…

Answer 10

Requirements capture

Initial design & prototype

Implementation

Evaluation

Question 11

Requirements capture invloves three main steps…

Answer 11

Find out what the user wants

Find out what the customer will pay for

Understand the tasks and context you are designing for

Question 12

Advantaes of questionnaires

Answer 12

Answering specific questions

Can reach many people easily and cheaply

Question 13

Advantages of interviews

Answer 13

Exploring issues

Interviewer can guide interviewee if necessary

Encourages contact between develoers and users

Question 14

Advantages of focus groups

Answer 14

Collecting multiple viewpoints

Highlights areas of conseus and conflict

Encourages contact between developers and users

Brings out hidden features

Question 15

Advantages of direct observation in the field

Answer 15

Understanding context of activity

Observing actual work/activity gives unique and grounded insight

Question 16

Advantages of indirect observation

Answer 16

User doesn’t get distracted by the data gathering, automatic recording means that it can extend over long periods of time

Question 17

Hierarchical Task Analysis is the…

Answer 17

Break down of tasks into subtasks, sub-sub tasks and so on

Question 18

Explain Iterative Design

Answer 18

Identfify and document specific goals for usabilty, bases on understanding use needs and requirements.

Iterate through design, prototype and evaluate

Users should be involved throughout the project, they are the judges.

Question 19

What is a Conceptual model?

Answer 19

A description of the proposed system in terms of a set of integrated ideas and concepts about what it should do, behave and look like, that will be understandbale by the users in the manner intended

Question 20

What is wizard of oz prototyping?

Answer 20

Prototype an interactive system by using human operators to simulate machine behaviour.

Question 21

Explain a bit about high fidelity prototyping

Answer 21

Uses materials that you would epect in the final product

Prototype looks more like the final system than low-fidelity

Don’t let user think it’s finished. You want them to be critical.

Question 22

What are some different approaches to evaluation?

Answer 22

Usability testing

Field studies

Analytical evaulation

Question 23

The main methods of evaltuation are…

Answer 23

Observing

Asking users

Asking experts

User testing

Inspection

Modelling of users task performance

Question 24

Triangulation in terms of software design involes…

Answer 24

Using a combination of techniques to gain different perspectives, or analysing data using different technieques

Question 25

DECIDE, a framework to guide evalutaion, stands for…

Answer 25

Determine the goals

Explore the questions

Choose the evalutation approach and methods

Identify the practical issues

Decide how to deal with the ethical issues

Evaluate, analyse, interpret and present the data

Question 26

Explain a bit about usability testing

Answer 26

Involves recording performance of typical users doing typical tasks

Done in controlled enviroment

Data could be recorded on video, key logs, etc…

Question 27

Give examples of typical data recorded in usability testing

Answer 27

Time to complete task

Number and type of errors per task

Number of navigations to help pages

Number of users completeing task sucessfully

Question 28

How many participants is good enough for user testing?

Answer 28

Typically 5 - 10

Question 29

Explain a bit about field studies

Answer 29

Done in a ‘natural’ setting

Aim is to understand what users do already

Question 30

Name the three main types of experimental design

Answer 30

Differtent participants

Same participants

Matched participants

Question 31

Name the three stages for Heuristic evaluation

Answer 31

• Briefing session to tell experts what to do
• Evaluation period of each expert dooing an analysis to get a feel for the product
• Debriefing session in which experts work together to prioritise problems

Question 32

A few advantages of heuristic evaluation

Answer 32

• Few ethical & practical issues to consider because users not involved
• Best experts have knowledge of application domain as well as users

Question 33

A few problems with heuristic evaluation

Answer 33

• Can be difficult & expensive to find experts
• Important problems may get missed
• Experts have biases

Question 34

Explain a cognitive walkthrough

Answer 34

• Focus on ease of learning
• Designer presents an aspect of the design & usage scenarios
• One of more experts walk through the design prototype with the scenario

Question 35

What are the three questions explored in a cognitive walkthrough?

Answer 35

• Will the correct action be sufficiently evident to the user?
• Will the user notice that the correct action is available?
• Will the user associate the system response from his/her action, and interpret it correctly?

Question 36

Explain a Pluralistic walkthrough

Answer 36

• Variation on the cognitive walkthrough theme
• Performed by a carefully managed team
• The panel of experts begins by working separately
• Then there is managed discussion that leads to agreed decisions
• The approach lends itself well to participatory design

Question 37

What is Fitt’s Law? (1954)

Answer 37

Predicts that the time to point at an object using a device is a function of the distance from the target object & the object’s size

The further away & the smaller the object, the longer the time to locate it and point to it

Question 38

Advantages of A/B testing

Answer 38

• They test for casual relationships, not just correlations
• They reduce the effect of external factors
• Overcome poor intuition, espeically with novel ideas

Question 39

Problems with A/B testing

Answer 39

• Organisation has to agree on OEC (Overall Evaluation Criterion)
• Quantitative metrics may not explain why a treatment is better or worse

Question 40

Explain the Serif Hypothesis

Answer 40

Serif typefaces are easier to read, and thereby preferable for long stretches of text — because the serifs provide anchors that guide the reader’s eye. Sans serif fonts lack these anchors, and are therefore inappropriate for long stretches of text.