COEN 396

Human-Computer Interaction

Winter 1997

Interface Analysis 1

Due: In class, February 6

This assignment is a short exercise in applying some of the interface design and analysis techniques we've talked about in class. It is "pseudo real-world" in that you should conduct as thorough an analysis as limited time and subject availability allow. I expect you to spend at most 10 hours on this task.

Subject

The "undo" feature of a word processing, spreadsheet, or graphics (paint) package of your choice. Be sure to state the package name, version, and vendor of the software you are analyzing.

Approach

Use the application yourself (if you are not already familiar with it) and experiment with the undo feature. Evaluate the feature for your uses and experience level. Formulate a question about the effectiveness of the feature that you would like to evaluate. Clearly state the question or operation to be evaluated.

Find a minimum of three subjects to use the undo feature to allow you to evaluate the feature. You may use any of the evaluation techniques we have talked about that seem appropriate (questionnaires, direct observation, videotaping, etc.), or combinations of them.

Deliverables

Your report should include:

• - details of the package being analyzed
• - a clear statement of the question or operation being evaluated
• - a description of the procedure you used to conduct the evaluation
• - the results of your analysis
• - based on your observation of the operation of the undo feature, how do you think it has been implemented in this particular package (e.g., keep last n operations, keep complete history, etc.)
• - one or more conjectures about how the operation of the undo feature could be improved
• - a description of how you would determine whether the "improvement" actually led to better performance, assuming you had four weeks and $1,000 to conduct the second analysis (the $1,000 does not include costs of making the modifications to the software)
  

Grading

You will be graded on how clearly the evaluation question is phrased, the appropriateness of your choice of method given the question, the degree to which your results follow from your evaluation, and the proposed design of your follow-on analysis.