HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION (UG), 2017-18
ASSIGNMENT 1: FIRST STEPS IN USABILITY/UX EVALUATION
GENERAL INFORMATION
Due:
Submission: Assignment weighting: Word limit:
INSTRUCTIONS
Week 5 (Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 16:00) e-submission on Study Direct
10% of overall module marks
1000 words
The instructions for this assignment are taken directly from the core textbook for the module (Preece, J., Sharp, H. & Rogers, Y. (2015) Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, 4th edition, Wiley), and can be found in the print textbook at the end of Chapter 1 (p. 31, specifically). For ease of reference, I have reproduced the instructions here:
This assignment is intended for you to put into practice what you have read about in this chapter. Specifically, the objective is to enable you to define usability and user experience goals and to transform these and other design principles into specific questions to help evaluate an interactive product.
Find an everyday handheld device, e.g. remote control, digital camera, smartphone, and examine how it has been designed, paying particular attention to how the user is meant to interact with it.
- (a) From your first impressions, write down what first comes to mind as to what is good and bad about the way the device works.
- (b) Give a description of the user experience resulting from interacting with it.
- (c) Based on your reading of this chapter and any other material you have come across, compile a set of usabilityand user experience goals that you think will be most relevant in evaluating the device. Decide which are the
most important ones and explain why.
- (d) Translate each of your sets of usability and user experience goals into two or three specific questions. Then usethem to assess how well your device fares.
- (e) Repeat (c) and (d) but this time using the design principles outlined in the chapter.
- (f) Finally, discuss possible improvements to the interface based on the answers obtained for (d) and (e).(Preece, Sharp & Rogers, 2015)
ASSIGNMENT GUIDANCE
The textbook authors have also provided some pointers to help you with the assignment, which can be found on the accompanying website (http://www.id-book.com/chapter1_assignment.php). Again, for ease of reference, I have reproduced them here:
I would suggest that you include graphics in your assignment: it will make it much easier for me to understand what you are
evaluating, and any specific points you might want to make about usability, etc.
The assignment is meant to enable you to begin exploring and understanding the usability and user experience of interactive
products. Instead of simply saying ‘nice cell phone, lovely to use’ or ‘awful interface, really bad design’ you should now be
equipped (having studied chapter 1 and associated reading) with a set of terms and concepts that can help you describe
what is good and bad about an interactive product’s design in terms of its usability and user experience.
How do you go beyond simply saying ‘product X is easy to use, remember and to learn’? You need to examine in more depth
why you think something is usable or not, in terms of X, Y or Z. In so doing, you may find that while the basic functions are
easy to learn, many of the more advanced functions are fiddly or inefficient to learn how to use and remember. Hence, a
product’s usability and how desirable (or undesirable) it is will vary depending on the nature of the task, the context in which
it is being used, and who is using it. Setting specific questions for each of the usability and user experience goals and the
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design concepts and usability principles can help you to start articulating in more detail what is and isn’t usable about a
product (and why this is the case). In addition, asking someone else to try doing a range of tasks and observing them can be
very revealing, showing you aspects that you would overlook yourself or take for granted.
You should also try to avoid seeing usability in terms of ‘black and white’, i.e. a product is either easy to use or it is not, it is
efficient or it is inefficient to use. What is often much more interesting are the grey areas, where it may not be obvious at
first that there is a problem but only after careful examination are you able to identify a specific usability problem (or set of
problems).
Try also to avoid the checklist approach, where you simply run through the set of usability and user experience goals, and
design principles and compare them with the product in front of you. Use the goals and principles more as heuristics, by
which to uncover problems (or not) with a product. Always explain why you think something is easy to use or difficult to
remember, illustrating your answers with actual examples of tasks when using the product.
When thinking about making changes to a product, based on your usability evaluation, it is important not to think about
them as isolated improvements but in relation to each other. For example, consider the design recommendation for a
hypothetical cell phone: ‘remove the help icon at the top of the display screen’. The reason for the suggestion, is it has been
noted that when doing a usability evaluation, it takes up too much real screen estate. Instead, the suggestion is to make it a
hard-wired function, using one of the physical keys on the phone. The rationale is that it will still maintain visibility of the
help function at all times, but will also free up some display space.
Now think about what the consequences and trade-offs might be for the rest of the tasks the user has to do at the interface.
In this case, dedicating a hard button to be the help button means one less key available for doing other tasks. Does this now
mean that some tasks will need to be done by switching between modes, which wasn’t the case before? Is this preferable?
What is gained and lost in proposing this design change? Also think about why a particular way of doing something was
designed like that in the first place (e.g. why was the help button put on the display?). What do you think the designer was
up to and why did they make that decision? Did the designer have a choice, was it an arbitrary decision or was it a
compromise?
(http://www.id-book.com/chapter1_assignment.php)
MARKING CRITERIA
70-100% – All points of the assignment addressed in detail. The device, and the user experience resulting from interacting with the device, are well explained (and illustrated with graphics where appropriate). The usability and user experience goals are appropriately matched to the product, and well justified, and are translated into questions that can be used to assess the device. The assessment of the device is described clearly. Relevant design principles are similarly well chosen, well justified, and used to derive appropriate assessment questions. Possible improvements to the device are described, drawing on the findings obtained.
60-69% – All points of the assignment addressed, although some may be lacking in detail. The device, and the user experience resulting from interacting with the device, are explained (and illustrated with graphics where appropriate). The usability and user experience goals are matched to the product and justified. The assessment of the device is described, although there may be some minor confusion/lack of detail. Design principles are selected, but may not be the most appropriate/well justified. Possible improvements to the device are described, but may not draw clearly on the findings.
50-59% – Most points of the assignment addressed, but detail is lacking. The device, and the user experience resulting from interacting with the device, are explained. The usability and user experience goals are not always clearly matched to the produce and/or justified. The description of the assessment of the device may be unclear and/or lacking in detail. Design principles are selected but are not always clearly justified and/or appropriate to the product. Some improvements to the device are described, but not linked clearly to the findings.
40-49% – Some points of the assignment are addressed, while others are left out or incorrectly addressed.
Below 40% – There is a lack of relevant content and/or major misunderstandings with respect to the assignment guidelines.
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