ISU 570 Human-Computer Interaction
Spring 2004 -- Prof. Hafner
Study Guide for Final Exam

Some of the questions below will appear on the final. There may be other questions of a similar type drawn from the Review material listed under each topic and from class lectures/discussions.

The final will be Wednesday, April 21, 8:00 a.m. in 424 Hayden Hall. You may bring one sheet of paper, 8" X 11.5", written or typed on both sides, and you may consult it during the exam. No other books, papers or computers may be used during the exam.

I. The user profile. Review: BS 1.5 and Handout 3

What information does the user profile provide to designers (in other words, what are the major data components of the user profile)?

How is the data in the user profile gathered (by what method or activity)?

Give some specific examples of how the information in the user profile could influence the design of a user interface. (in other words, make some assumptions about the content of the user profile and then indicate how that profile would lead to specific UI design decisions.)

If universal usability is one of your design goals, what are some aspects of a user interface design that would be relevant to meeting that goal (and explain how they would be relevant).

Creating a user profile is part of the first stage of the usability life cycle. At what later stages of the life cycle is the user profile most important, and explain its impact in the stages you mentioned.

II. Evaluating user interfaces Review: BS 4.3-4.8, class discussion

What are the various methods for evaluating a user interface that we have studied?  For each, describe it briefly (one sentence).

What is the difference between summative and formative evaluation? Of the evaluation methods mentioned above, which are summative, which are formative, and which can be both?

In a controlled laboratory experiment, how would data be collected and what kinds of data elements would be collected? For each kind of data collected, what would you expect to learn?

In laboratory experiments, what factors might cause a lack of reliability and what factors might cause a lack of validity?

What is meant by "competitive evaluation"? In competitive evaluation, do you think a between-subjects or within-subjects design is better, and why?

III. Human factors and Web usability Review: Ratner Ch. 4, 9, 14, 15

In Scent of the Web, what element(s) of usability did the authors want to evaluate and improve?

Briefly describe the technique created by the authors and explained in the article.

How was the technique empirically evaluated?

Answer the same 3 questions for the "Live Help" article.

Answer the same 3 questions for the "Improved Error messages" article.

In the article on Cost-justifying usability, what were some of the "benefits" of usability engineering that the authors recommended be considered?

IV. Scenario-based Design Review: Handout 4, class discussion

You should understand the difference between activity design scenarios, information design scenarios and interaction design scenarios, and given an example scenario, be able to identify which design level it represents.

You should be able to write a scenario (at any of the three design levels) for a hypothetical application

V. Menu design; UI design tools. Review: BS Ch. 7

Explain what we mean by a "design issue", "design choice" and "design decision", illustrating your explanation with an example of a menu design problem.

What is a tree-structured menu? Give an example of one and show the relationship between the abstract "tree structure" and how the menu actually looks and behaves in the user interface -- you will need several diagrams to do this.

What guideline did we learn regarding breadth and depth of tree-structured menus? What are some other menu design guidelines?

When using a UI design tool such as Visual Basic .NET, a range of design choices are provided by the tool. Choose a VB widget other than a menu, and describe some of the design choices provided by VB for that widget. How does the designer communicate his/her decisions to the tool?

By offering a pre-defined set of choices, UI design tools tend to limit the design alternatives that UI designers consider. Give an example of how VB tends to limit the design of one of its widgets by only presenting certain design choices for it. Propose how the design choices could be expanded, and describe how your proposal could be incorporated into VB.

VI. Error recovery, documentation and on-line help Review: BS Ch. 11.2, 12

What are Norman's three principles for handling errors in interactive design? (can be found in the Improved Error Messages article)

What are some techniques a UI designer can employ to minimize the chance that an error will occur?

What are Schneiderman's four attributes of good error messages. Be able to apply them to specific examples.

What are some pro's and cons associated with providing machine-readable documentation instead of printed?

When writing text for documentation, what are some "do's" and "don'ts"?

Explain several UI idioms used in on-line help systems that are intended to improve their usability relative to printed or electronic manuals.  Which of these do you think is most valuable and why?