A groupware developer identified three level of users expertise novice, intermediate, expert. In his term he depicts them as knowledge based, rules based, skill based behaviors how with this categorization it would help the developer in creating a good system? Give various examples in yours answer15marks
Ans Novice (knowledge Based), Intermediate (rule based), Expert (skull based)
Meeting users requirements (alternative i/p, o/p channels wizards ,short cut keys etc)
Usability - confessional (usage of language, term, jargon / metaphor , no of steps)
Effectiveness- (expert-shorter time, novice-shorted learning time, intermediate- shorter time to relearn)
Connect different level of users(expertise, share knowledge)
Balance the interface(navigation)
General point for HCIG
Designing for different application (laptop, internet, PDA, kiosk ,web Tv, mobile phone
Screen size : IP channel, context, layout , navigator, font size, pop scroll
Speed- file size - use text more
Refresh rate & screen
Storage space
Battery life
RAM
Important exam * Evaluation and usability
Evaluation & testing
Evaluating media
Purpose of evaluation
Formative(find problems) or summative (test)
Analytical (Predict analysis, usual done by expert) or empirical (establish usual done by expert)
Designing needs usability testing just because something has been carefully designed does not mean that it has been designed well.
Method used - no direct question A merry christmas and propores
* Heuristic evaluation
HOME RUN Example-
High quality
Content
Often upload
Minimum download time
Eased use
Unique to the online medium
Net centric corporate culture
Heuristic for webpage
Relevant user need
Compile a list of heuristic for evaluation a groupware application
In the interface accept to all users
Provide multi language selection
Provide customizable feature
Platform compatibility
Recognize rather than recall
Provide unauthorized access
Provide common language
Provide help
Fulfill all user category
Provide extension capability
Rule and regulation /session control
Coordination of process
Indicate system status
Multi access
Heuristic Evaluation is a quick way of having experts evaluate your product
Less expensive than usability testing, but does not find same type of problems
Best to use in conjunction with usability testing
Heuristic review is a type of expert evaluation, where experts review a product's usability. It is an easy to learn method that can be quickly applied by library staff to roughly determine the usability of their library's various software products. The technique is based on the work of Nielsen, and has the following five steps:
Several HCI experts compare a prototype to a set of heuristics ('rules of thumb') for developing easy-to-use user interfaces. We use a set of 14 heuristics. A mixture of domain and design experts work best as evaluators.
Any usability problems found are evaluated for their severity and extent. It is important that the evaluators do not discuss their findings with other evaluators during this phase.
The reports of each evaluator are compiled and grouped based on severity.
All the evaluators participate in a brainstorming session. During this session: (1) Reports are grouped into a common set of problems and severity/extent ratings, (2) This set of problems is further refined into several problem categories, and (3) Solutions to the problems are proposed.
A summary report of the brainstorming session is distributed to interested parties, and a course of action is determined.
While generally less expensive, results vary on whether Heuristic evaluation or usability testing is the 'better' technique. One study indicated that heuristic evaluation found more severe problems than usability testing [1], while the results of another study were that it found only about 20% of the total problems found in a usability evaluation [2].
Given the above findings, we use heuristic evaluation and usability testing. Heuristic review is recommended for a product in its early stages, as a quick and inexpensive method of finding major UI problems. Usability testing is recommended for use later in the development process, when the extra value of finding the problems real users may encounter justifies its cost and time.
Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
Match between system and the real world
The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
User control and freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow uniform and/or platform conventions.
Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
Recognition rather than recall
Make objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Accelerators-unseen by the novice user-may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.
Affordances
Does the user understand what the text/graphic will do before they activate it?
Use chunking
Write material so that documents are short and contain exactly one topic. Do not force the user to access multiple documents to complete a single thought.
Provide progressive levels of detail
Organize information hierarchically, with more general information appearing before more specific detail. Encourage the user to delve as deeply as needed, but to stop whenever sufficient information has been received.
Don't lie to the user
Eliminate erroneous or misleading links. Do not refer to missing information.
* Prototyping and design
To clarify user requirement
To the get the overview
More user involvement
Can solve design issue
To minimize the cost of development
Can come up with variation
Ways:- store boarding , incremental, scenario, flow chart, UMIL.
Users 3. Design
HCI GROUPWARERequirement - Storyboard mock up
Interview & survey - design principle- device, platform, environment
Observation. Types users
User profile card - ergonomic
Sorting HTA- - social- ethnography, anthropology
Metaphor and mental model
Prototyping
Evaluation (walkthrough, empirical)
Evaluation -formal us informal
Analytical us formative summative
Heuristic
IN exam must describe HTA & GOMOS , MENUS
Must be able to browser online / offline
User friendly
Observation
Keystrokes
Q 2. Describe how with the presence of or consideration of ethnography in your design it help in creating a better system give the examples in your answer (15marks)
Q3. Your have been asked to design for a fashion house in displaying their design in one of the fashion shows what would be the media types that your used in this system and justify your choice (12 marks)
Ans .
Making the system more usable /understandable - user would be interact with the system
EG. Multi lingual
Access able -how different types of user
Eg. Collaboration system
Flexible -task involved -must frequently used question -obvious
Suitability- impact on h/w , s/w .
Video -realist
Audio- to emphasis there/style modify setting
Smell-winter perfume
Picture -panoramic view
Animation / 3D
Suggestion on metaphor and why?
Q 4. Your are asked to produce a children CD rom to teach young children age 6-8 on how to use a mobile phone the cd Rom is to be usal with assistant from any adult
Sketch 3 storyboard and you must include the main screen (6 Marks)
Explain and describe the design principle s that you have used in producing the story in question (10 Marks)
How would you then evaluate the storyboard that have sketched ? you may list down any assumption for this question (9 Marks)
Q5. There are different design approaches to designing a groupware system?
Define groupware system (3marks)
What are the consideration that you would be taking when designing a G/W system
Describe how with the used of a metaphor that it would contribution to a better design groupware system (10 marks)
Q6. Evaluation is one of the very important components in developing a successful system
Compare & contract cognitive walkthrough and heuristic evaluation you should provide example in you answer (10 Marks)
How can prototyping problems in involving user during the evaluation stages (8 marks)
What are the potential problems in involving users during the evaluation stage (7 Marks)
Q7. A new WWW application that enables users to browser and look vacation has just been developed the application is complete but has not been tested
There are many elements in such as in internet application identify five where it is essential
Testing is come out on the completed application you should accompany each of your
Suggestion with support notes as to why testing of the elements is important (20 marks)
Describe six suitable techniques for testing the application and include discussion as to the
Main advantage & disadvantages of each (30 marks)
Q8. Why do interaction plays a central role in HCI design discuss in your answer a system management
That might guide this interaction (25 Marks)
Q9. Three level users (15 marks)
Q10. How would take ethnography techniques as one of the consideration in to your design helps
Producing a better system (12 marks)
Q11. Which usability evaluation techniques are most appropriate to the following situation for each say
Why this suits so
An expert user performing a familiar task
An expert user designing a novel solution
A new user using a system for the first time.
General
Human Computer Interaction Usability Principles
There are three major principles, which applied in designing system applications especially multimedia applications to support usability. The three major principles are as follows:
Learnability
Learnability means how the user can have an effective interaction and achieve maximal performance out of a system. There are few sub principles of learnability which are applied in our group application.
Predictability
As we know the meaning of predictability is able to determine the effect of future actions based on past interaction experience.
Synthesizability
Synthesizability means 1) Can u perceive and understand the effects of his actions on the system state? 2) Are the effects o=f us actions immediately perceivable or only after U have taken special steps to perceive them. We use this concept in this application.
Familiarity
Familiarity defined how the past knowledge applies to a new system. In this case our group has decided to put the 'home' and 'back' icon. User normally had exposed to this kind of button as they would know which is home or back button.
Generalizability
The system should provide functions that are common to all users. For example the arrangement of the buttons should base on level of importance while the use of icons and menus should not concentrate on certain users. It should be design based on all beginner and expert users so that users can utilize the system from their past knowledge. From my view, generalizability is where user wants to try out something which they usually use.
Consistency
Consistency in design is regarding to the similarity of the overall look and feel of the website. For our system we have used standard font size and color to provide consistency on it. We use consistent light background color with picture for our system so that user can use it without confuse and prevent eyestrain. The consistency will enable the user to feel comfortable when viewing our system. Mostly user will not like any changes to the system unless there is need for improvement because they have familiar with the system.
Flexibility
This principle defined the different ways of user and system exchanging information. There is few sub principle of flexibility:\
Customizability
Customizability means Modifiability of the user interface by the user (adaptability) or system. There are two types customizability, they are Adaptability and Adaptivity. Adaptability means user can adjust the background, color by input and output, and use the menu toolbar to customize to what you want. Adaptivity means automatic customization of the user by system. Our system did not apply this principle as user should be able to use our system without customization.
Robustness
Robustness defined the level of support provided to the user in determining theusefulness and achievement of the system whether it can accomplish the task of the user. Some of the sub principle of robustness:
Observability
User needs to evaluate the status of the system from its perceivable representation. The user needs to know that their process is taking place. In the GSC Cinema Plaza there are button with flashing affect .for example is the user placed the mouse pointer on the button it will the some flashing affect and clickable.
Responsiveness
This principle means that a system should show the rate of processing for an action taken by the user and its stability. In the system when the user point to the icon the image will become larger when the placed the mouse pointer on the picture. Besides that when we click on the icon the particular pages will appear therefore the respond time is fast and stable.
Recoverability
This principle is the ability of user to take corrective action once an error has been recognized. There are three types of recoverability which are forward recovery, backward recovery and commensurate effort. Forward recovery is related to the error that cannot be pulling back. The backward recovery is a mistake that had been recovered through the application of the redo action. For the commensurate effort, it is when an error is difficult to recover. In our GSC Cinema Plaza system provided two buttons called HOME and BACK all over the system. If the user click BACK button, it goes pervious page and if user click the HOME button it goes to home page.
Evaluation of the system- heuristics and usability testing
Evaluation:
Evaluation has several distinguishing characteristics relating to focus, methodology, and function. Evaluation (1) assesses the effectiveness of an ongoing program in achieving its objectives, (2) relies on the standards of project design to distinguish a program's effects from those of other forces, and (3) aims at program improvement through a modification of current operations.
What to evaluate?
There is a huge variety of interactive product with a vast array of features that need to be evaluated .some feature, such as sequence of link, control and button.
Why you need to evaluate?
Why you need to evaluate? The general question is: to find out what users want and what problem they experience, because the more understanding designers have about users need, then the better designed their product. Without evaluation the product reaching consumers would be untried; they would reflect the intention of the design team. They are two reasons for why you need to evaluate the system,
Problem are fixed before the product is shipped, not after
The team can concentrate on real problem, not imaginary ones
When to evaluate?
Evaluation of the system
Heuristics
Usability Testing
As part of this system development and the implementation stage, we have to evaluate and do the testing and the study of the system heuristics to ensure it is developed to its requirement and will fulfill the user objectives. The system comprising of the hardware, software and the system has to undergo testing such as heuristics, usability and other system testing before it is taken into the implementation stage. The advertisement that we take into evaluation is the advertisement that will be providing the information of GSC Cinema Plaza.
The goals of evaluation and testing are to:
Assess extent of System functionality
Assess effect of interface on user
Impact of design on user (easy to learn and usability factors)
Identify specific problems
Cause of unexpected results &confusion among the users related to both the functionality and usability of design
Purpose of Testing
Primary focus is on usability.
Real users participate.
Participants do tasks that probe the usability of the product.
Participants think out loud as they work.
Since this testing and evaluation part is done by a specific person because each part is allocated to a group member is done in a group base even though it is intended to be done by a single person, which Jakob Nielsen suggested it will be more accurate and effective if the evaluation is done by more than 1 evaluators so that more usability problems or any malfunction of the system can be found in a faster and more structured way. In this Human Computer Interaction module project we have to evaluate our peer system and they will evaluate our system according to the checklists that will be given to them for comments on our system. After getting the peer evaluation results and remarks than further work will be done to refine the system.
Determining the Number of Evaluators
According to research done by Jakob Nielsen with his team of researches he found out that individual evaluators can perform a heuristic evaluation of a user interface on their own, but the experience from several projects indicates that fairly poor results are achieved when relying on single evaluators. However, since different evaluators tend to find different problems, it is possible to achieve substantially better performance by aggregating the evaluations from several evaluators.
Based on the principles by the 'Usability Guru'-Jakob Nielsen we have choose the two most popular testing methods that are widely used and practiced which is the Usability testing and Heuristics evaluation methods. The term heuristics will be further discussed in terms of psychology and also in computer science term or understandings.
Heuristics evaluation
Heuristic evaluation is a variation of usability check where usability specialists judge whether each element of a user interface follows established usability principles. This method is the part of the so-called "discount usability engineering" method.
Basically, heuristic evaluation is a fancy name for having a bunch of experts study the interface and evaluates each element of the interface against a list of commonly accepted principles--heuristics. Early lists of heuristics were quite long, resulting in tedious evaluation sessions and tired experts. These long lists rather defeated the purpose of this method, which was to save time and money over testing.
Ten Usability Heuristics
These are ten general principles for user interface design. They are called "heuristics" because they are more in the nature of rules of thumb than specific usability guidelines.
Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
Match between system and the real world
The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
User control and freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
Recognition rather than recall
Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.
Summary
According to the Peer to Peer Evaluation we have found out that our advertisement's layout and content applies much the principles that is stated according to the table above. It can be said that our system' ratings can be given as 5/7 where the 5 is Good and the remaining 1 is Average and another 1 is poor. The heuristic criteria that we need to improve are in Criteria 3and criteria 7.
Usability testing
Usability testing encompasses a range of methods for identifying how users actually interact with a prototype or a complete site. In a typical approach, users one at a time or two working together use the system to perform tasks, while one or more people watch, listen, and take notes. Usability testing is a core skill because it is the principal means of finding out whether a system meets its intended purpose.
This testing and evaluation done towards GSC Cinema Plaza are that our system meets the objective and also the system is user friendly, easy to use and more structured. Usability testing of products and documentation can identify problems, explore questions with measurable answers, and confirm or challenge the assumptions of developers. Successful usability testing accurately emulates the expected real-world context of use. The two most important parts of this emulation are realistic scenarios (situations of use, combined with user tasks) and representative users (test participants with the same characteristics as the target audience and the effectiveness if the system that being tested.
The Usability checklist can also be further enhanced using the Thinking Aloud Protocol where it is a popular technique used during usability testing. During the course of a test, where the participant is performing a task as part of a user scenario, you ask the participant to vocalize his or her thoughts, feelings, and opinions while interacting with the product. You begin by providing your participant with the product to be tested (or a prototype of its interface) and a scenario of tasks to perform. Ask participants to perform the tasks using the product, and explain what they're thinking about while working with the product's interface.
System Design Evaluation Usability Principles (Heuristics)
Heuristic/usability principles
The Criteria
Designers
Peer to Peer evaluation
Remarks
1.Speak the users language
Words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user
√
Good
No bombastic language
2.Consistency
Uniform conventions for layout, formatting, typefaces, labeling
√
Good
Same colour and background for all interfaces.
3. Flexibility and efficiency of use
Users can easily reach the desired and directly to the goal
√
Good
4. Progressive levels of detail
Information hierarchically organized
√
Good
5. Navigational feedback
Allow users to move freely back and forth easily
√
Good
Media Design Guideline
Interface design of the screen should be given emphasis upon designing and the development process of the system. Therefore, the team has followed some underlying principles on designing the system.
Firstly, the system follows a consistent set of screen template. The buttons will be placed at the left side of the screen. This is because the users' eyes will always look from the far top left first. There will be five buttons on the menu, body adventure, quiz, games help and about us. The background color is as well consistent on all screens. This is to ensure that the users can relate one screen to the other.
Metaphors help users define what the interface can do and what information is contained in a program by relating it to a known function or process taken from an area or discipline familiar to the users. The system is using metaphors to represent its buttons. For example, in the body adventure, body parts pictures are used to represent its function. For example, lungs are used to represent the lung section and so on for the other body parts. Moreover, the mascots are used to represent the correct or the wrong answers to the kids in the quiz section. By using metaphors, users can easily relate the buttons with its functions.
Navigation had always played an important role in the system. If the navigation is user friendly, it'll be more accessible for the users. Therefore, the team has placed the buttons on all screens to ensure there would be no difficulty for the users to move from screen to screen. In the quiz section, the replay button for the wrongly answered questions is provided so that the users can re-answer the question again. With easy navigation, users would be more comfortable in browsing the system.
Buttons should always be designed attractively and interactively. In the main menu, the buttons are designed using text. This is because, the text would be more appealing to users and these buttons play the major functions in the system. Moreover, when the cursor is placed over the text, there will be a pair of 'lungs' on each side of the text to indicate that the particular button is selected. As been mentioned above, in the body adventure section, the team has used the respective body parts with the name popping out beside it when cursors move on them as the buttons.
The background of the system is red in color. This symbolically represents the color of blood. However, there is a human body picture as well as patterns on the background to ensure that the background is not plain and the color is not striking. The background is standardized on all the screens except for the game section.
The team has used the font Plump MT. The reason to choose this font is because it is simple. The team believes that the font used should be simple and readable. This is because the system users are kids and in this system, it involves a lot of text. Therefore, the font should be appealing to the kids and they don't have to strain their eyes to read the texts.
The quiz is as well designed in an interactive way. The users can choose the particular body part they are interested in and the questions would be asked related to it.
Moreover, the games are as well designed relatively with the system.
In a nutshell, the system is designed with taking into consideration all the important design principles. This to make certain that the system is user friendly, attractive and most importantly interactive.
Usability Principles
Usability principles have been applied in the application to help improve the usability in the system. There are three main principles which is Learnability, Flexibility and Robustness. And under these three major principles are other sub principles.
Learnability
Our system has a very easy to learn interface. Suited for children aged 7 - 12, the words used in the menu are big and understandable for their level. There are five buttons on the main menu which is not too much to confuse the user. Each button has its own specific task; therefore users will understand the function of the buttons in a short period of time.
Predictability
A sub principle of Learnability, Predictability means that a user can expect what will happen next when he/she clicks an option on a system. For example, on our system when a mouse cursor is over a button, it will automatically change into a hand and indicating to the user that it is a clickable option.
Familiarity
As mentioned above under learnability, our system is very easy to understand. Therefore, the user will be able to familiarize themselves with the buttons in a very short period of time.
he criteria's for evaluation are as follows:-
Visibility of System Status
Match between system and the real world
User control and freedom
Consistency and standards
Error Prevention
Recognition rather than recall
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from error
Help and documentation
www.useit.com
Use the User Interface Design Model to develop a good system
Activities
verify system functionality with users
develop user profiles
select input and output devices and the operating environment
user interface design activities
conduct a task analysis
deisgn and develop human computer interactions
design and develop computer presentations
design develop user guidance
documentation and tranning design activities
prepare documentation and performance aids
develop training
optimizing activities
Good Designer should be known three things
what they can do their basic ability and skills
what they cannot to their basic limitation
what they will do what they will be motivated to perform
Developer has to known who is users and they limits
Sensory limits such as threshold and deficiencies
Responder limits Colors
Cognitive processing limits such as response time and accuracy
Advantages of prototyping
Quick results
Reduce the cost
Improved communication
Types of usability tests four major types
Formal evaluations
Inspection evaluations
Performance tests
Operational evaluations
Formal evaluations is adequacy of user interfaces
GOMS (goals, operator, methods, and selection rules) is methodology, designers can predict performance time for a set of accurately performed activities and evaluation of a user interface.
Other methods such as cognitive complexity theory and cognitive skills for expert users.
Inspection evalutions is evaluate the product such as commands, proposed error messages , initial screen or window design, interface objects , work procedures.
Type of inspection
Walkthroughs (involves designer, programmer, users also knw as storyboard)
Observation evaluations (involves tester )
Questionnaires
Guide line based reviews (GUI & Common user access)
Heuristic evaluation (finding the problems)
Scenario based reviews (using working prototypes)
Performance test (people performing activities, system prototypes)
Major actitives such as planning, conduting test, evaluate the outcome & make changes\
Operational evaluation method after system delivered
Such as interview, surveys, diaries, electronic monitoring.
