Test 2 Flashcards
What does GOMS stand for?
Goals - Operators - Methods - Selection Rules
2.7.2
Name the two weaknesses of the GOMS model.
(1) Doesn’t address complexity
(2) Assumes user is an expert
2. 7.5
What is a strength of the GOMS model?
Formalize user interactions
2.7.5
Describe KLM-GOMS.
Key-level stroke
Identifies the individual operators and execution times, sums them to find complexities
Describe features of CMN-GOMS.
- Includes submethods and conditions in a strict goal hierarchy
- Goes down to a very detailed level, like moving text
- Finding where there a lot of complexity in the model and trying to remove them
Define and describe NGOMSL
- Natural GOMS Language
- Lends itself to interpretation
- Summarily, different ways to help us focus on where we’re asking too much of the user
Define Cognitivism
an approach to psychology that emphasizes internal thought processes
How are GOMS and Cognitive Task Analysis different
- Argument that human reasoning is too nuanced to be so simplified into the human processor model and using things like GOMS
- Cognitive task analysis puts a higher emphasis on attention, memory, and cognitive load
Define Cognitive Task Analysis
• Cognitive task analyses are concerned with the underlying thought process associated with performing a task
Why might we use a Hierarchical Task Analysis?
• Hierarchical task analysis can help us understand what tools already exist to support the task, which is not clear at a higher level
What are the two strengths of Cognitive Task Analysis?
- Strength: emphasizes mental process
* Strength: formal enough for interface design
What are the two weaknesses of Cognitive Task Analysis?
- Weakness: time-intensive
- Weakness: may deemphasize content
- Weakness: ill-suited for novices
Define Cognitive Load
minds ability to only deal with a certain amount of information at a time
Describe the link between cognitive load and distributed cognition
• With distributed cognition, that cognitive load is distributed across more resources
Define Situated Action
• Focuses on the context in which people interact
Describe the difference between Situated Action and Distributed Cognition
• Unlike distributed cognition, situated action isn’t interest in long-term, enduring interactions
What is the main takeaway from Activity Theory?
o Focus on activity = why is the user doing what they’re doing, what does it mean to them
What did Bonnie Nardi say about Activity Theory?
• “Activity theory offers a set of perspectives on human activity and a set of concepts for describing that activity. This, it seems to me, is exactly what HCI research needs as we struggle to understand and describe “context”, “situation”, “practice”
What did Bonnie Nardi say is the contracts between Activity Theory / Distributed Cognition and Situated Action?
• “Attention to the shaping forces of goals in activity theory and distributed cognition, be they conscious human motives or systematic goals, contrasts with the contingent, responsive, improvisatory emphasis of situated action”
What did Bonnie Nardi site about goals from Lave?
• “Goals are our musings out loud about why we did something after we have done it, goals are “retrospective and reflexive” (Lave 1988)”
What did Bonnie Nardi say about Activity Theory, specifically artifacts and people?
• “Activity theory, with its emphasis on the importance of motive and consciousness – which belong only to humans – sees artifacts and people as different.”
What did Bonnie Nardi say about Distributed Cognition, specifically about artifacts and people?
• “Distributed cognition, by contrast, views people and things as conceptually equivalent; people and artifacts are “agents” in a system”
What are the three goals of HCI?
1) Help a user with a task
2) Understand how a user does a task
3) Change the way a user does a task
What does “Do Artifacts Have Politics” state about nuclear power?
• “reliance upon nuclear power as the principal source of energy may be possible only in a totalitarian state” because of the inherent danger of the technology
Describe inherently political technologies from “Do Artifacts Have Politics”
due to their very design have political structures (e.g. nuclear power because of top-down power needed)
Describe a key takeaway from “Do Artifacts Have Politics” regarding what technologies carry.
• Technologies aren’t in themselves political, but that technologies carry with themselves necessary political adjustment
Describe negative change by design, including an example.
- Interfaces changing behaviors can be abused
- E.g. city planning in New York and bridges between the city and parks in Long Island along freeways, the bridges were too low for public transportation to pass under them, so as a result only people wealthy enough to own cars could get to the parks. Done intentionally to prevent poor people from visiting parks.
Describe an example of positive change by happenstance.
- E.g. when bicycles became popular, women became more independent. Before bicycles, the main mode of transportation was horses, which were prohibitively expensive to own, so women were dependent on their husbands
- Also changed women’s attire because it is hard to wear a dress on a bicycle
Describe an example of negative change by happenstance
- E.g. internet
* Uses expensive infrastructure lines, which were located and used by more economically advantaged areas
Define value-sensitive design
• “Value sensitive design seeks to provide theory and method to account for human values in a principled and systematic manner throughout the design process”
What are fundamental features of value sensitive design, per “Value Sensitive Design and Information Systems”
1) Should be proactive
2) Distinguishes between usability and human value
Define a shallow prototype.
cover the whole interaction, but in a shallow way
Define a vertical prototype.
cover a narrow part of the interaction, but in a detailed way