Exam Review

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Exam Review
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Exam Wednesday. 4/30
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Format

• 50 questions (more or less)
• Multiple choice
• Closed book and 1 page handwritten cheat sheet
• Will be online _at_ mycourses.rit.edu
• During class time

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THE USABILITY ENGINEERING LIFECYCLE
1. REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS
User Profile Contextual Task Analysis Platform
Capabilities Constraints General Design
Principles
Usability Goals
2. DESIGN, TESTING DEVELOPMENT
Level 1 Work Reengineering Conceptual Model
Design Conceptual Model Mock-ups Iterative
Conceptual Model Evaluation
Level 2 Screen Design Standards Screen Design
Prototyping Iterative Screen Design Standards
Evaluation Style Guide Development
Level 3 Detailed User Interface
Design Iterative Detailed User Interface Design
Evaluation
3. Installation
User Feedback
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THE USABILITY ENGINEERING LIFECYCLE
User Profile Contextual Task Analysis Platform
Capabilities Constraints General Design
Principles
Usability Goals
2. DESIGN, TESTING DEVELOPMENT
Level 1 Work Reengineering Conceptual Model
Design Conceptual Model Mock-ups Iterative
Conceptual Model Evaluation
Level 2 Screen Design Standards Screen Design
Prototyping Iterative Screen Design Standards
Evaluation Style Guide Development
Level 3 Detailed User Interface
Design Iterative Detailed User Interface Design
Evaluation
3. Installation
User Feedback
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Phase 1
REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS
User Profile Contextual Task Analysis Platform
Capabilities Constraints General Design
Principles
Usability Goals
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THE USABILITY ENGINEERING LIFECYCLE
1. REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS
User Profile Contextual Task Analysis Platform
Capabilities Constraints General Design
Principles
Usability Goals
Level 1 Work Reengineering Conceptual Model
Design Conceptual Model Mock-ups Iterative
Conceptual Model Evaluation
Level 2 Screen Design Standards Screen Design
Prototyping Iterative Screen Design Standards
Evaluation Style Guide Development
Level 3 Detailed User Interface
Design Iterative Detailed User Interface Design
Evaluation
3. Installation
User Feedback
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THE USABILITY ENGINEERING LIFECYCLE
2. DESIGN, TESTING DEVELOPMENT
Level 1 Work Reengineering Conceptual Model
Design Conceptual Model Mock-ups Iterative
Conceptual Model Evaluation
Level 2 Screen Design Standards Screen Design
Prototyping Iterative Screen Design Standards
Evaluation Style Guide Development
Level 3 Detailed User Interface
Design Iterative Detailed User Interface Design
Evaluation
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THE USABILITY ENGINEERING LIFECYCLE
1. REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS
User Profile Contextual Task Analysis Platform
Capabilities Constraints General Design
Principles
Usability Goals
2. DESIGN, TESTING DEVELOPMENT
Level 1 Work Reengineering Conceptual Model
Design Conceptual Model Mock-ups Iterative
Conceptual Model Evaluation
Level 2 Screen Design Standards Screen Design
Prototyping Iterative Screen Design Standards
Evaluation Style Guide Development
Level 3 Detailed User Interface
Design Iterative Detailed User Interface Design
Evaluation
User Feedback
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5 Usability Attributes

• Learnability
• Efficiency
• Memorability
• Errors
• Satisfaction

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The top 10 recommended usability heuristics

• 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
  errors
• Help and documentation

according to Nielsen
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reference

• http//www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/
• Jakob Nielsen's Online Writings on Heuristic
  Evaluation
• How to conduct a heuristic evaluation
• A list of ten recommended heuristics for usable
  interface design
• A more detailed discussion of the
  characteristics of the usability problems found
  by heuristic evaluation
• How to rate the severity of the usability
  problems
• Why uptake in industry has been so fast for
  heuristic evaluation (note this essay is about
  technology transfer and not a tutorial article
  like the rest of this list)

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Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA)

• Task decomposition
• Split into subtasks - subdivision no longer
  needed
• Plans to describe order and conditions
• Text and diagrams

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Plans

• Explanation for each step
• Fixed sequence - parts always done
• Choice
• Waiting for events
• Cycles - repetition
• Time-sharing - done at same time
• Discretionary - optional
• Mixture of all above
• Start and stop rule

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What Is a Task Scenario?

• Example for a customer support page for a
  computer retailer
• Who it is
• A 20 year old college student
• What they want to do
• Find out how to fix her HP printer that wont
  print
• When they want to do it
• At 11pm at night
• Where they are
• In a dorm room using her laptop
• Why they want to do it
• For a term paper due tomorrow

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Types of Tasks Critical Tasks

• New concepts or features
• E.g., new search capabilities
• New mechanisms for users
• E.g., drop down lists, roll-overs
• Critical features to success of interface
• E.g., ordering or communication

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User Interaction Scenario

• A story about people and their activities
• Also called Activity Design Scenario
• Example
• An accountant wishes to open a folder displayed
  on his screen in order to open and read a memo.
  However, the folder is covered by a budget
  spreadsheet that he also needs to see while
  reading the memo. The spreadsheet is so large
  that it nearly fills the display. The accountant
  pauses for several seconds, then resizes the
  spreadsheet, moves it partially out of the
  display, opens the folder, opens the memo,
  resizes and repositions the memo, and continues
  working.

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Root Concept

• High-level Vision may come from management,
  client, marketing, open-ended discussions about
  new technologies
• Rationale why do we want to do this?
• Starting assumptions these constrain or
  otherwise guide the development process
• Stakeholders (users) identification of the
  people who will have a vested interest (or stake)
  in the project outcome

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Using User/Customer Personas and Task Scenarios

• Usage
• Match specific tasks with the individuals
• Use in both design and evaluation
• In design, used as a target and communication
  tool
• In evaluation, the tasks are used to illuminate
  the expected experience
• Repeat the task, approaching it as if you were
  one of the other personas

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Stakeholders The Users

• Determined from the observations and interviews
  for each group
• Organize into profiles
• Include general characteristics

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Scenario-based Design and Evaluation

• Who is the user?
• Develop user personas
• What are they supposed to do?
• Develop some task descriptions

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Scenario

• A story about people carrying out an activity
• Problem scenario a story about the problem
  domain as it exists prior to technology
  introduction
• Good at raising questions
• Design scenario conveys a new vision for the
  project

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User Personas

• Build a profile of a user with enough richness
  for a designer to get into their shoes
• Who
• Age, gender, education, experience (internet and
  computer), occupation, language and
  nationality(?)
• Context
• When, where (work, home, other), computer (speed,
  browser, monitor, etc.), connection (ISP, modem,
  etc.)

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Definition - Prototype

• Artifacts that simulate or animate some but not
  all features of the intended system
• Iterative design

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Three main approaches

• Revolutionary
• Throw-away
• Actual prototype is discarded
• Incremental
• Product built one component at a time
• Evolutionary
• Basis for iterative design system evolves

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Rapid Prototyping

• Fast cycles, little or no code development
• Early visualization of product
• Crisp definition of requirements
• Early user testing
• Enhanced feedback to the user

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Approach - Scaling down

• Horizontal
• shallow and wide
• usability eval. less realistic, but covers
  functionality
• Vertical
• deep and narrow
• usability eval. realistic, but few functions
• details in functions included

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Approach - Content

• Global
• wide and deep
• much of entire system
• get a feel for the final product
• Local
• narrow and shallow
• pick a single important detail
• stand-alone, not connected to rest of sys.

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Usability Testing

• 5 testers discover 85 of major flaws
• Next 5 discover approximately 90
• Next 5 discover aproximately 95 (or better)

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What we want

• Reliability
• Repeatable results
• Validity
• Do results reflect usability issues one wants to
  test
• Wrong users, wrong tasks

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Evaluation

• Informal
• go play around with this thing and tell us what
  to fix
• Formative
• as developed
• Summative
• after product finished

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Formative Evaluation

• All thru project
• Use think aloud
• 3 major cycles followed by iterative redesign
• Get most data from the first major cycle
• Fewer newer discoveries later

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Summative Evaluation

• Good for comparing 2 products
• Performed once
• If you wait, may be too late
• Better for comparison of two systems

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Usability Testing

• Plan and prepare
• Conduct the test
• Collect data
• Analyze data
• Draw conclusions
• Document results
• Repeat step 1

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Task analysis
setting
users