hci_2013r.md

HCI: 2013 Repeat

Question 1

Part A

Human Computer Interaction is the study of the interaction between humans and computers it involves the development and application of good design principles, guidelines and methods to improve overall design and evaluation.

Part B

Human Computer Interaction is important in interface design, if a designer doesn't consider human computer interaction in the design phase they could end up designing an interface that isn't usable by a portion of the target audiance. e.g 5% of people suffer from colour blindness, designing an interface without them in mind could make it unusable by them.

Part C

Gestalt Laws

Gestalt laws are important in HCI because they give the designer an idea how the user will preceive visual aspects of the interface. They can predict what way the user will group sections.

Part D

Command language has a steep learning curve, the user has to remember specific commands/flags in order to get things carried out effectivly. Direct manipulation interfaces on the other hand assist the user in getting their job done it feels more natural to delete a file by dragging it to a recycle bin rather than a command like rm -f file.txt. Direct manipulation interfaces give the user instant feedback if a user drags a file to the bin then the file will dissapear right in front of them, a command on the other hand gives no signs that it's succeded. Users are more likely to make mistakes on a command interface.

Part E

Task analysis in computer science is the analysis of how a certain task is accomplished. There are different ways to perform task analysis on a given task, for example:

• Hierarchical task analysis is a form of task analysis where we list out the subtasks involved in getting a particular task done, if one of these subtasks is important / complex it too will get it's subtasks listed and so on. The person performing the task analysis can go into as much detail or as little detail as they want.
• Knowledge based analysis involes focusing on the objects that are used in the task and how the task is actually performed. The main object / task becomes top of list and any sub objects follow below.

Question 2

Part A

Usuability is the amount of effort an average user has to spend in order to get a task done and how much effort it takes to learn how to do this. In short it's the ease of use/leaning that a system has. Usability of a system also considers how useful that system is at carry out a specific task for the user.

Part B

• Time to learn
  • The time spent by the user before they can efficiently use an interface is crucial, if the user finds another system that's easier to learn they're very likely to switch to it.
  • If a UI isn't somewhat familiar metaphorically to a user then they might not even bother trying to learn and instaly move to something easier.
• Time to perform specific tasks
  • The time it takes for an average user to perform simple tasks is crucial, if a user feels that they could get the same task done elsewhere faster then they're likely to switch.
• Frequency of commands
  • If a system requires frequent user commands then a user could become tired sometimes it's better to have less user commands even if it requires a little bit more time to get a task complete.

Part C

User analysis is the means by which designers determine the characteristics and needs of users that will influence the development of the system. There are many different classes of users possible for a system with a variation of experiance, expertise, motives etc.

There are a number of issues that UCD helps to solve like:

• Looking at the products competition
  • Ask questions like How do you complete the task with rival system?
  • What do you like / dislike about it?
  • How does it compare?
• What are the the users priorities

Part D

In order to ensure an interface is accessible we can: - Test the interface with a range of people with varying age, gender and abilities and see if they are satisfied. ask them specific questions in order to see how the interface compares to competitors in terms of accessibility. Watch them carrying out tasks and try and see areas that could be improved on. - Comply with any legal requirements regarding accessibility, this will ensure that the application is at least usable in most cases.

Question 3

Part A

• User Categories:

  • Users hoping for it to lead to a degree
  • Users hoping to extend their degree

• User Groups:

  • Age:

    • Most users will fall into the 17 - 25 category
    • Some mature students 25+

  • Gender:

    • Both genders

  • Abilities:

    • People with wide range of physical dissabilities
      • Blind
      • Colourblind
      • Deaf
    • People with wide range of mental dissabilities
      • ADHD
      • Autism
      • Dyslexia
      • Learning dissabilities

  • Location:

    • People from all over the world

  • Culture:

    • People from a huge range of cultures

  • Language Skills:

    • English their first language
    • English not their first language

  • Prior Experiance:

    • People with experiance of Access tools
    • People with no experiance of Access tools
    • People with experiance with similar tools
    • People with no experiance with similar tools
    • People with no computer experiance
    • People with computer experiance

Implications: User analysis reveals the following aspects that will heavily influence site design.

1. There will be a wide range of users with a wide range of abilities using the site, in order for our site to cater for as much of them as possible we'll have to consider every one of them in each stage of the design process.
2. English isn't going to necessarily be the user's first language so thought will have to be put into the wording of questions/statements (possibility of letting the user change language?).
3. Some users will have very little/no prior experiance with similar tools so it's important that we give the users hints and assist them in filling in completing their tasks as much as possible.

Part B

• Get assistance applying for courses
  • Enter wesbite
    • Open browser
    • Enter URL in address bar
    • Search
  • Navigate to assistance section
    • Click Help heading
    • Select subheading Get Assisntance Applying
  • Enter assistance portal
    • Read through basic assistance guidelines
    • Navigate to assistance portal item
    • Click Assistance portal
  • etc
  • .
  • .
  • .

Lots more tasks need to go in here but I can't be bothered doing it