In-Class Activity/Assignment Option #2:
Individual Cognition

Overview and Learning Objectives

The specific learning objectives of this in-class collaborative activity are:

• to apply some of the design principles derived from the lecture on human cognition to a user interface of your choice
• to use your group's findings as a a basis for redesigning the interface.

Note: At least one group member must have a laptop computer with an interesting array of software installed. An internet connection is optional.

Steps

1. Begin by choosing a software package or internet site of interest to your group. The software or internet site must be non-trivial and include graphical elements. What is the name of the software package or website? If it is a website, what is the URL?
2. Individually or as a group, explore the application and website for a few minutes. Then individually, write down your mental model of how the application or website works in a paragraph. As a group, come together to discuss your mental models. Where are they the same and where are they different? What does this tell you about your software?
3. Identify a task scenario that you believe might be commonly enacted within the software or website. For example, if you were looking at a word processor, a common task scenario might be "Jon needs to use the Word processor to edit a term paper. He first needs to find and correct all spelling errors. Next, he needs to replace the word "thee" with the word "you." He then needs to bold-face his headings. Finally, he needs to save and print his document."
4. Evaluate the ease and speed with which your task scenario can be performed with respect to the following design principles derived from Tuesday's lecture. (You may want to open up the lecture slides to help you apply the principles.) Try to be as specific as possible. If a given principle does not apply, then it is OK to say "not applicable" or "N/A," as long as you justify why it does not apply.
• Attention: Make salient information stand out.
• Perception: (a) Differences among graphics elements should be recognizable; (b) "Text should be legible; (c) Colors should be distinguishable.
• Memory: (a) We can hold 7 +/- 2 chunks in working memory (Miller); (b) Dual-coding theory (Paivio); (c) Recall is better than recognition (Norman).
• Learning: (a) Power Law of Practice (a) Provide a variety of methods by which users can accomplish tasks; (b) 80-20 rule
• Motor Behavior: Fitts' Law
• Errors: (a) Prevent slips (physical constraints); (b) Enable easy detection/correction of slips
5. Pick a "scribe" to keep track of the group's discussions, and to write up the groups' answers to the above questions.
6. Fifteen minutes prior to the end of class, your group should be prepared to present your findings to the class for feedback and discussion.

Assignment Option #2

Note: As stated in the course syllabus, you are required to hand in at least three assignment options, one from each of the three major sections of the course (Background and Theory, Designing Interactive Systems, Evaluating Interactive Systems). In other words you need to hand in

1. assignment option #1, 2, 3, or 4;
2. assignment option #5, 6, or 7; and
3. assignment option #8.

Assignment Tasks

1. Choose a software application that you use or find interesting. Make sure to dedicate at least one paragraph to describing this software application in your write-up.

2. Design a relatively simple task that can be done with that software. Your task should be similar in scope to the one that you developed in the studio activity. Someone who has never done the task before should be able to complete your task in 30 seconds or less. List the step-by-step actions required to complete the task. Test out these instructions on your own to make sure that they are easy to follow.

3. Run a mini-empirical study in which you (a) give three different users your task description (the step-by-step actions you wrote in Step 2 above), and (b) have the users perform the task three times in succession (with a short break in between trials) while you observe them and take careful notes. Be sure to (a) use a stopwatch to record how long it takes them to perform each task trial, and (b) note any errors they make in each task trial. In your write-up, you can organize your observations by completing this template table for each task trial:
   
   

User #:
Trial #:
Time to complete task:
# Errors:
Description of errors or problems observed (note where they occured):


Note: If you want to be sure not to miss any action, you might choose to record your test users using a video camera, webcam, or screen capture software like Camtasia Studio.

4. Complete the following summary table of your results:
   
   

	Trial #1		Trial #2		Trial #3
User	Time	Errors	Time	Errors	Time	Errors
1
2
3
Averages:

 

5. In two to three double-spaced pages (1" margins), discuss your observations with respect to the following laws and principles discussed in lecture. Do you think the designers of the software application were aware of each of these laws and priniciples? Why or why not? To the extent possible, ground your discussion in the observations you made.

• Attention: Make salient information stand out.
• Perception: (a) Differences among graphics elements should be recognizable; (b) "Text should be legible; (c) Colors should be distinguishable.
• Memory: (a) We can hold 7 +/- 2 chunks in working memory (Miller); (b) Dual-coding theory (Paivio); (c) Recall is better than recognition (Norman).
• Learning: (a) Power Law of Practice (comment on this by observing the results listed in your summary table); (a) Provide a variety of methods by which users can accomplish tasks; (b) 80-20 rule
• Motor Behavior: Fitts' Law
• Errors: (a) Prevent slips (physical constraints); (b) Enable easy detection/correction of slips.

 

Additional Research Task for Graduate Students

Read the article entitled "Fitts' law and expanding targets: Experimental studies and designs for user interfaces" by M. McGuffin and R. Balakrishnan. It is available online at http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1121112.1121115. (Make sure you're inside the WSU firewall before accessing this document; otherwise, you will not have access to the full PDF of the article). This article reports an interesting experimental investigation of the applicability of Fitts' Law in cases in which the target area dynamically grows. Prepare a two page (double-spaced, 1" margins) critical review of the article. Your critical review should not only identify the key points of the material, but also analyze and critique its underlying perspective. The following list of questions provides a useful starting point for your critical review:

• Who are the authors? What is their academic history? From what intellectual perspective are they coming? What are their biases?
• What are the key points of the article?
• Are there any gaps in logic or presentation? How could the presentation or argument of the article be improved?
• How does the article compare, and fit in, to others you've read on this topic (if any)?
• What do you like about the article? What do you not like? Why?

Deliverables and Grading

By the deadline, hand in a hardcopy written report that includes a secdtion that addresses each of the assignment tasks described above. Your report must have a title page with "Assignment Option #2" displayed prominently in bold at the center of the page; your name, the name of this course, and the date should appear in smaller type below the title.

We will use this assessment form to evaluate your work. The critical review required of graduate students will be evaluated according to this assessment form. Be sure you that carefully read these forms ahead of time, so that you can take the assessment framework into account as you write your report.