Individual Homework Assignment 1

Good Examples:

Example 1

• Purpose of Interface
  Microsoft Ribbon UI
  Ribbon is a interface where a set of toolbars are placed on tabs in a tab bar. Recently Microsoft has implemented such interface in MS Office.
  
  
• Good Aspect
  The Microsoft Office Ribbon allows you to have an uncluttered GUI for a large number of MS Office functions by providing groups view.
  The earlier versions of Microsoft Office had a menu based Graphical User interface. This was a convenient and easy to use to interface that used a hierarchy based arrangement that made finding the required functionality easy. But as the products in the suite have become more and more complex, the available functions have increased too. The typical hierarchal menu based system is no longer the best user interface. In order to accommodate all the functionality, MS office would have required having a very extensive menu with multiple levels. To accommodate the larger number of functionality available easily to the user the Ribbon interface was used. Ribbon interface makes it easier for users to find and use the full range of that Office provides.
  Tabs: The Ribbon uses Tabs to display commands. The most relevant commands for each area in the application are grouped together and placed on a tab. The Home tab provides easy access to the most frequently used commands.
  Contextual grouping: Certain commands are only relevant when a particular type of object is being used. Example the charting commands used for modifying and editing Charting operations are relevant only when there is a chart object in the document or spreadsheet.
  Reduced Clutter:By grouping the related functions into a Tab and displaying only relevant tabs when needed, Office is able to reduce the clutter of unwanted functions being displayed in the user interface.
  
  
• Reason as to why it is good Interface
  Ribbon interface is designed to make features accessible easily with fewer mouse clicks. Hence it increases the speed of operation. For power users who use a particular part of Office more frequently than other, the grouping that Ribbon allows, helps them find what they want more easily. The Ribbons have big bold buttons for functions and can be read easily. Hence it is easier to locate the function that you want to use, on the Ribbon
  For e.g., if I am a writer writing a book, the functions like text formatting Spell Check, font selection, font color selection are more useful for me than charting functions, Tables etc. By allowing these regularly used functions on a Ribbon I can have access them easily without having to bother about picture function, charting functions etc.
  
  
• Screenshots of Interface

• Purpose of Inerface
  Garmin GPS
  GPS global navigation satellite system provides reliable positioning, navigation, and timing services to worldwide users on a continuous basis. Market products produced by Garmin are a popular in car navigation systems that provide real time Global positioning. The device has inbuilt maps that guide users with driving directions from current position to the destination
  
  
• Good Aspect
  Bold and colorful display:The Garmin GPS systems provide a graphical user interface that is easy to use. As the average user is might not be very tech savvy, the GPS uses big colorful buttons with clearly indicated bold test to help users program their destination address.
  Guided system:To help users easily enter their destination address the GPS system uses hierarchical point to point screens. Upon selecting the Address button the GPS provides the screen to enter the State. To guide users the current state is provided as a default option. The GPS then allows user to enter the city. To guide users the auto complete system provides narrowed down options. For e.g., if you begin typing Boston as B-O-S then system helps users by providing list of cities like “Boston’, Bothell’ etc. This minimizes the time required for typing the entire city name and a one click selection can be made. This system aims at reducing the user clicks required to locate an address using the guided directory system.
  Big buttons with pictures:Apart from address location, the GPs provide a directory service of local points of interests like Transit, shopping, Gas station etc. To facilitate ease of selection, the GPS uses large buttons with clear graphical icons that provided better understanding of the selection.
  Easy to understand maps:The maps are color coded to help better interpretation. The GUI allows to users to easily toggle between drawn maps and direction lists
  Address Storage:The Garmin GPS allows users to store frequently visited address which can be accessed through MY LOCATIONS on the home Screen.
  
  
• Reason as to why it is good Interface
  The GUI of Garmin GPS is optimized to allow users to make selections with fewest clicks on the touch screen interface. The maps displayed are colorful and easy to interpret. E.g.Water bodies are displayed in Blue and wooded areas by Green. The user interface allows customizing the look and feel of their displays. Users can adjust Color, tone, brightness of the display through the easy to use settings.
  The GPS has touch screen interface so as to maximize the useable area of the device as a display. The ease of use ensures that even the least tech savvy individual can easily operate the device, and be able to understand the directions. Some devices come with text-to-voice for better use. This feature allows the users to keep their eyes on the road enabling safer driving.
  
  
• Screenshots of Interface

Bad Examples:

Example 1

• Purpose of Interface
  Facebook New Version
  Facebook(FB) is one of the most popular social networking site. One that caters to a varied demography, it is important to keep the facebook user interface appropriate for all users.
  
  
• Bad Aspect
  Due to multiple apps in Face book, the view is cluttered.
  
  
• Reason as to why it is Bad Interface
  Due to multiple apps in Face book, the view is cluttered. Facebook allows users to create and place apps onto its user interface. The wide varieties of applications publish users date to their friend’s startup page. Due to the large number of app the startup page frequently appears cluttered with information that the user does not wish to see. Due to this the information of interest is often lost in the clutter.
  The new cluttered GUI is also error prone. Third party applications embedded on your page often crash and lead to the whole page being disabled. This does not provide a pleasant user experience.
  
  
• Speculate why Face book is designed that way and suggest how to improve Interface
  Due to the increased users on FB and popularity of different applications among FB users, I guess FB is designed that way so as to have as much as possible applications on homepage
  Face book should have a friend ranking system and base their GUI on this information. Friends that I interact and chat and post for more often than others should appear on the top of my page. Also being able to customize information like birthdays information so that I could have it displayed in a certain font size and space would be great. Due to the increased applications like Farmville and Mafia wars, many of your friends might choose to publish their achievements in the pages. Even if you are not interested the published information shows up and clutters your page.
  In order to solve the drawbacks of new application FB launched a new version called Facebook lite in some countries which is simpler faster with minimum applications like wall, photos, videos for users who don’t use remaining FB applications .It has similar interface like twitter. Users can always revert back to original FB interface to access other apps.
  
  
• Screenshots of Interface
  
  Facebook Lite
  
  
  Facebook
  
  
  

Example 2

• Purpose of Interface
  Car dashboard
  Car dashboard interface is control panel located under the windshield of an automobile. It contains the instrumentation and controls pertaining to the operation of the vehicle.
  
  
• Bad Aspect
  1. To view the car’s indicators drivers have to take eyes off the road.
  2. Although the car dashboard provides a good indicator of the cars controls. It does not have any accommodation for Hearing impaired drivers.
  
  
• Reason as to why it is Bad Interface
  1. Even though the driver has to take his eyes off the road to see the dashboard only for a second, this could result in car accidents. Every year many car accidents are a result of such situation where the drivers took their eyes off the road to check speed for change the radio station. Dashboard displays could be optimized using technologies like HUD displays that allow the users to see through the controls.
  2. One of the important abilities to ensure safe driving is sound cues. These include Honking in emergency situations, emergency vehicles. The car dashboard in most current cars does not have any features for the hearing impaired.
  
  
• How to improve Interface
  1. HUD or Heads up Displays are being used in Planes and racing cars to allows user to gain control information without taking their eyes off the road. These displays allow the user to see through them, thus allowing keeping their eyes on the road ahead. HUD display may not be cluttered but may be programmed to display the most frequently used information like Speed, and radio station. The HUD can be a supplemental display to the current Dashboard displays. This will minimize the number of time the driver has to take his/her eyes off the road, and help save lives.
  2. The HUD displays can be used for information from voice detectors to let disabled drivers know of a honk or police siren. The messages could be color coded to indicate severity, e.g. a loud honk from the left hand side of the car could be displays as a Red illumination on the left side of the display. As many hearing impaired read lips to engage in conversations, the HUD could be programmed to convert voice from a person sitting beside them and convert their dialogues to text that will be displayed on the HUD. This would allow them to have conversations in the car.
  
  
• Screenshots of Interface
  Car Dash Board Interface
  
  
  
  
  A simple HUD indicating vehicle speed. (Going too fast)
  
  
  
  A more complex HUD display (Illustration)