MOUNT KENYA UNIVERSITY

HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION

VIRTUAL STUDY MODE
SEPT/DEC 2016

ANSWE ALL QUESTIONS

Section A [10 marks]

Multiple choice (1 point each).Choose the best answer.

1. Post-test questionnaires (conducted after a usability test) are particularly useful for
measuring
a. safety.
b. efficiency.
c. learnability.
d. user satisfaction.

2. A pluralistic walkthrough
a. is usually conducted at the end of the development process.
b. is often conducted with low-fidelity designs.
c. requires having several alternate designs.
d. requires a fully functional prototype.

3. Providing accelerators (e.g. keyboard shortcuts) mostly addresses

a. utility.
b. efficiency.
c. learnability.
d. attitude (or likeability).

4. A method that does not require human participants serving as test users is the
a. usability test.
b. pluralistic walkthrough.
c. Rubins comparison test.
d. heuristic evaluation.

5. The cognitive walkthrough mainly evaluates a product's

a. utility.
b. efficiency.
c. learnability.
d. likeability..

6. Although humans often rely on spoken natural language to communicate with each other,
spoken language is not used very heavily in human-computer interfaces. What is an important
reason for that?
a. The bandwidth of the auditory channel is more limited than that of the visual channel.
b. Computers would have to understand many different languages and dialects.
c. It requires speech recognition by computers, which as of now is too error-prone and
consumes too many resources.
d. Speech output by computers sounds rather unnatural.
7. Which of the following is NOT a practical guideline as given by the U.S. Military Standard for
Human Engineering Design Criteria for User Interface Design:
a. Achieving required performances.
b. Fostering design standardization.
c. Achieving reliability.
d. Maximizing system responsiveness.
e. Minimizing skill and personnel requirement.

8. Which of the following is NOT a measureable human factor to facilitate the evaluation of a
specific user interface design?
a. Ratio of completed tasks to incomplete tasks.
b. Rate of error.
c. Retention over time.
d. Subjective satisfaction.
e. Time to learn.

9. Among the different interaction styles, direct manipulation focuses on:

a. How to manipulate the end-users as directly monitored by a group of experts.
b. How to build a direct penalty-reward scheme for new users to quickly learn to use the
system.
c. How to build a command system for the users to directly control/customize everything
within the system.
d. How to build a close co-relation between the visual representation of world of actions
with familiar interface objects.
e. How to build a reactive system that can directly modify the action plan of individual
interface objects according to its environment.

10.Which of the following is NOT an expert reviews method?

a. Cognitive walkthrough.
b. Consistency inspection.
c. Heuristic evaluation.
d. Usability testing.
e. None of the above.

Section B [20 marks]

11.Discuss the factors governing the choice of an appropriate evaluation method for different
interactive systems? Give brief details. (6marks)

The Purpose of the Evaluation

The purpose of the evaluation varies greatly from program to program. As discussed
previously, evaluation can be defined as the systematic collection of information about
program activities, characteristics, and outcomes to reduce uncertainty, improve
effectiveness, and make decisions. Most frequently, the emphasis is on whether or not the
program had the intended effect. But, information could be collected that focuses only on

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the number of individuals served. Or evaluation data may be collected to use for
marketing purposes. Each of these different strategies would require differing evaluation
designs and differing evaluation skills.

What Will Be Evaluated

Is it the entire project or only certain components? For example, if you are part of a
coalition, you may think about evaluating individual coalition initiatives like the
provision of after-school activities. But dont forget that you may also want to evaluate
changes in the coalition over timethings like growth of coalition membership, formal
agreements with key community organizationsand the impact of the coalition on the
overall community.

Who Wants to Know What

Keep all of your stakeholders in mind. Program providers may want to know whats
working and what isnt. Funders may want to know if the program is cost-effective and
supported in the community. They may also have specific measures that are required.
Communication between funders, project staff, and evaluators is essential to ensure the
necessary data are identified, collected, analyzed, and reported in a manner that is
understood from the beginning.

When Results Are Needed

An evaluation is often bound by schedules and deadlines that are beyond your control.
Think about school calendars and funding cycles as examples. If your reporting needs are
short-term, dont ask questions that require long-term follow-up. Process information is
generally needed quickly. Short-term outcome results often need to be reported back in a
timely manner (usually within 6 to 12 months of program implementation), while more
long-term results are typically not available until sometime after program completion
(often 3 to 5 years).

What Will Be Done with the Evaluation Results

Think broadly about the utility of your results. You can use your data not only to meet
funding requirements, but also to garner community and school support, inform future
planning or programming, support community stakeholders, etc. But, the degree of
influence a program has on the evaluation findings is largely dependent on the research
design used.

Available Resources for the Evaluation (Time, Money,

People)

Dont ask questions that you cant afford to answer. Available resources can influence an
evaluation plan more than any other single factor.

12.Evaluate three mental models, and why are they important in interface design (6marks)

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-Psychological Grammar
-Vocabulary
-Mapping

13.Explain what a system designer can do to minimize the memory load of the user(2marks)

14.Consider the widespread use of email.

a) Elaborate what explanations are there for its success and what lessons can be learned
from its development to assist the design of other computer-mediated communication
systems (4marks)
b) What are the main issues that need to be addressed to ensure the success of email in an
organization (2marks)