Imat 5209 Human Computer Interface Assessment Answers
This assignment is designed to provide practical experience of carrying out an analysis of usability requirements and priorities, performing a systematic usability evaluation using a standard method, and producing a presentation reporting the findings.
Submission and Marking Procedure
This is an individual assignment. It is worth 50% of the total mark for the module.
Your report should be submitted electronically as a Word document via the Turnitin link for Assignment Two under Assessment on Blackboard, and should be submitted in hardcopy form at FOTAC.
The submission deadline is 12:30 on Thursday 17 May 2018. The target date for the completion of marking and the return of results is Friday 7 June 2018.
University Rules
Where coursework is submitted later than the agreed deadline without an application for an extension or deferral being approved by the appropriate member of staff, then the following tariffs apply: Work which is submitted unauthorised up to 14 calendar days after the original submission date will receive a mark that is capped at 50%.
Regardless of how the work is submitted, submission constitutes an assertion by the author that the work is neither plagiarized nor otherwise committing any academic offence.
Task
Your firm of interaction design consultants is trying to build up a portfolio of impressive work, to enable it to pitch for business convincingly in the future.
Your task is to produce a usability evaluation of an interactive system by carrying out user testing, plus a presentation of your results. You have a completely free choice of what interactive system you evaluate.
Choice of Interactive System
Possibilities include software applications such as CASE tools or games or e-commerce websites or photo editing systems; electronic devices such as remote controls for televisions or DVD players, or digital cameras, or car radios; or control panels for appliances such as microwave ovens or home heating systems; or a self-service system such as an automatic train ticket vending machine. You may, if you wish, choose to evaluate two very similar and directly competing products, and assess ways in which one is superior to the other.
It’s perfectly okay to decide to evaluate a part of a big or complicated system, or consider a limited set of use cases. A reasonable amount of functionality to consider is what you can get one user to work through in one user trial.
The one piece of advice we can give is to choose something that is complicated or difficult to use, or is used to carry out complicated tasks, and preferably has obvious usability problems. Studying more complicated and less frequently used features of a system is likely to be more fruitful than focusing on the standard functions people use all the time. You may choose to interpret ‘interactive system’ very broadly and present a usability evaluation of a static information display, but this would require a sophisticated and detailed analysis of how people use it for practical tasks, and these tasks would need to be complicated enough to give you something to analyse. Ask advice if you consider this.
The Usability Evaluation
Producing the usability evaluation will involve
- Identifying the use cases or aspects of the functioning of the system to be considered, and briefly describing them in your report. (These don’t need to be a complete set of use cases; for very complicated systems focusing on one part of what they do is just fine. However you should give a clear indication of what subset of the functionality of the system you are considering, and what you are not considering. If in doubt, cover less functionality in more detail.)
- Defining an evaluation procedure. This will include stating one or several user tasks to be tested with exact descriptions of the scenario and the goal the user is trying to achieve, as well as what the evaluator will do to collect results and produce an evaluation. It requires a description of the procedure to be followed with each test subject from start to finish, including the exact wording of the instructions given to the subjects. The evaluation procedure needs to be described separately from the description of the results. Ideally your procedure should include filming the subjects.
- Carrying out the evaluation. This will involve following the procedure and documenting what the users do and what problems they have. This should include brief descriptions of your test subjects including what relevant experience they have. Your raw observation notes should be scanned and presented as an appendix. You should test the system with several subjects. You may want to treat your first test or two as a pilot and revise your procedure; if you do this, comment on it.
- Deriving findings about the usability of the interactive system from the results of the usability evaluation. This should include consideration of how strong and how general the conclusions are. Don’t be afraid of lists.
Written Submission
Your report should comprise the following elements:
- Part ONE: The interactive system and its users. A brief statement of what the interactive system is and what it does – sufficient to make the rest of the report comprehensible; plus a description of the user populations and the assumptions it is reasonable to make about the capabilities of the users. The word count should be between 200 and 500 words.
- Part TWO: The use cases. Brief accounts of the use cases considered, plus a statement of what you are not considering, if you are only looking at part of the system. A use case diagram is optional. The word count should be between 100 and 300 words.
- Part THREE: The evaluation methodology. An exact description of the evaluation procedure to be followed, including exact descriptions of the user tasks being considered and the scenarios and data used, and the instructions to be given to users. The word count should be between 600 and 1500 words.
- Part FOUR: The evaluation. The results of applying the evaluation procedure: what you saw test subjects doing, measurements of their performance, answers to debriefing questions, and so on. The word count should be between 1500 and 2500 words.
- Part FIVE: The findings of the evaluation. The findings of your evaluation about the usability of the interactive system. Include comments on how the findings relate to the results of the evaluation procedure, and ideally about how strong the evidence is, as well as judgements of how serious you think the usability problems are. An itemized bullet point structure is likely to be easier to read than long paragraphs of text. This should also include an appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses and successes and failures of the evaluation process. The word count should be between 500 and 1000 words.
- Acknowledgements of any help received, any information we should have when assessing the assignment, etc, in an appendix.
- Your notes made during observations of user trials, while conducting a heuristic evaluation, etc, should be included in an appendix. Handwritten notes should be scanned or photocopied.
Answer:
Interactive system & its users
HCI (Human Computer Interface) has proved itself to be one of the most innovative technological advancement of the current era. HCI has adopted many different mode and one of them is the HWI (Human Website Interaction). The objective of the deemed report is to evaluate two e-commerce website. To attain the discussed objective, the paper has considered argos.co.uk & rakuten.com as its subject. Both of the subjects are e-commerce shopping websites however, there offerings are mostly similar to each other.
Evaluation methodology
Outline : There are various methods for evaluating a website and one of them is Cognitive walkthrough (CW) method. It has emerged as one of the favourite evaluation methodology for the evaluators. The reason for the popularity that the user enjoys lays basis on the simplicity to complex tasks offered by the system. The evaluator in the discussed methodology evaluates the system from a user’s perspective by answering a set of questions that has been designed to understand the functionality, usability, visibility and interface of the system. The following sections and paragraphs offers an insight into the discussed methodology and how the evaluation method works.
The first step of the deemed evaluation process starts with the perception of the evaluator who explains his perspective on visiting the website for the first. As the evaluator is aware of the technical aspects of the website hence, he/she/they judges the website theoretically and explains their thought. The author perception is not part of the evaluation but it is done to develop a platform for the real evaluation process. The perception of the author is taken in consideration to develop the questions that need to be answered from the perspective of a first time user.
The questions that the user answers from the perspective of the user are associated with four factor. The four factors that formulates the base of the questions in the cognitive walkthrough evaluation method are visibility, usability, interface and functionality. The visibility factors discuss the answer to the question of whether or not the options are readily visible to the first time user. The usability discusses whether or not the evaluated system is offering the options that the user desires from the interactive system while the interface decides the comfort that the user enjoys. Finally, the functionality discusses the response from the available options, are they effective or random.
The question based on the above discussion and the purpose of the report would be as follows:
- Which system offers a clearer and precise visibility to its visitors?
- Which of the subject is more structured in the usability department?
- Which of the two websites offers more enjoyable interface to the users?
- Which of the two discussed system have a clearer and more precisely defined functionality?
The questions are designed as such because in the discussed report two system are being evaluated and hence the former are designed to take both the subjects in consideration by evaluating them individually on the cognitive factors and then compare them to summarise the results.
The discussed evaluation method is adopted because of the significant benefit offered by it. The most prominent benefit offered by the cognitive walkthrough evaluation method is that it offers very little chance of developing any ethical issue as the data from the evaluation cannot be manipulated. Additionally, the method not only evaluates the challenges but also offers remedial measures for it. Another significant benefit from the system is inexpensiveness and quick evaluation while taking explicit consideration of the user’s work. The selection of the evaluation method is based on the benefits offered by the methods as discussed above and on the fact that the discussed method is readily achievable for an evaluator which even offers reliable results.
Evaluation
Evaluator’s Perception: The first step of the evaluation process is the first perception of the evaluator after he/she/they visit the website for the first time. The subjects of the paper are argos.co.uk & rakuten.com and the first perception of the author has been produced in the following paragraphs.
NOTE: All the images attached in the assignment has been collected from the official websites of argos and rakuten.
Argos.co.uk is an online shopping website that offers multiple offerings from clothing to fooding and others. On reviewing the website over different online reviewing cites it was determined that the discussed website is one of the most preferred choice of shopping for the online shoppers. Discussing about the design the website is very well-decorated and the structured. The options available on the site are well placed and are responsive as well. However, the most vital part of the website as determined by the author is its search option and algorithm.
argos.co.uk has followed a generalised slide down structure for the options. The core sections offered by the website are visible on screen while the moving the cursor over the option slides downwards to show the subsections. The search bar is also visible at the top of the first screen mitigating the effort invested by the user to identify the offerings of the organisation. The consumer attracting offerings also keeps flashing on the screen forcing the visitor to investigate more into the website. Another notable fact about the website is that it does not flashes any advertisement that generally causes interruption of visibility for the users. So, over all the website’s visibility can be considered of excellent quality.
argos.co.uk has designed the website to be customer friendly and hence, have included all the essentials of a website from responsiveness to dynamic and keyboard support along with other much needed essentials. The update of the progress is also evident on the website through a motion emoji. The website also works adequately in a low connectivity mode and can satisfy the users from the results. As stated above the search algorithm of the website is also excellent which makes the usability of the website very suitable. Hence, in conclusion it can be stated that the usability of the website can be categorised in good category.
rakuten.com has its origin rooted to the Japan and took over play.com which was one of the most appreciated website and hence, the usability of the website is great. It supports all the essentials of a good interactive website. However, a drawback has been identified and it is associated with the low connectivity. The website demands high connectivity rate and can cite error response if the connectivity is not up to the standard of the website. Overall, the usability of the website is good though, a ‘basic html’ version of the site can be of great effectiveness.
Which of the two discussed system have a clearer and more precisely defined functionality?
The functionality of the interactive system in the deemed scenario will compare the response that the user gets and the response they desire, that is it will be evaluated that the available option avails suitable output to the input.
argos.co.uk did offers suitable response to the input when searched for an item. The evaluator even attempted to purchase a product and it seemed to be successful. Additionally, when searched for an item, in the search tab, the outputs were accurate and adequate. Though, it should be noted that the payment modes available at the bottom of the websites are attached for no use because when touched they do not offer any details or takes the user to the checkout step.
rakuten.com on the contrary to its counterpart has limited options available on the website but has attached only the options that are feasible. The library formatting of the sections may be time-consuming but offers suitable response to the input. The search options also offer suitable response to the input though its predictive nature is limited that is in case the user enters wrong keyword then the system cites no results. The system is capable of predicting but to a limited capacity.
Which of the two websites offers more enjoyable interface to the users?
The interface of an interactive system defines the comfort that the user enjoys while using the systems.
argos.co.uk has an interesting interface which offers comfort to the users. The chat and the search options enhances the interaction between the user and the system while adequately placed options also make it comfortable. However, the slide down nature of sections cites problem at times because whenever, the cursor is moved above a section it automatically slides down blocking the view of the options below.
rakuten.com unlike argos, have a library sectioning which would not appear unless touched manually and hence does not obstruct the view of the user. The responses of the options are also efficient. Another notable fact is that the purchase to payment process of the system is more comfortable than its co-subject. Hence, it can be stated that the interaction of rakuten is excellent.
Findings & summary:
The evaluation above has revealed that both the considered interactive systems have their share of strength and weaknesses while, argos is leading in the visibility and usability, rakuten has maintained the advantage in functionality and interaction. However, considering the overall factors together it can be stated that argos leads than rakuten. The reason for stating the above mentioned fact lays basis on the fact that the evaluation reveals that the errors identified in argos are much smaller as compared to that of rakuten.
The identified weaknesses that argos should improve are relevant to its automated slide down nature of the sectioning and use of not so useful onscreen options, however it cannot be considered as an obsolete weakness because the discussed feature is desirable for some users. On, the contrary, the availability of the unnecessary options like that of the payment mode details can be easily resolved by adding adequate details to those options. Hence, it can be stated that argos is in need of improvement but those changes can readily be managed to offer an appropriate & satisfactory result to the user.
On the contrary, rakuten has been identified with some significant challenges that are in dire need of attention and can cause some serious trouble for the user. The first and foremost of the challenges of the website is the limited predictive nature of the search algorithm. It can be enhanced to offer more reliable results for the wrong keyword entered by the user. Additionally, the discussed system also does not offer connectivity ease in a low connectivity mode which is cannot be considered as a problem, however, if the organisation devises a strategy to mitigate the challenge, it will offer more reliability to the website.
Hence, the report can be emphasised to state that both the subjects of the paper are adequate in their own perspective while argos leads in general, rakuten has its share of advantages. The strength of the rakuten are its library sectioning which is preferred by the frequent users and its fast processing of the purchase to payment process. Additionally, with improvement in the search option, rakuten can prove to be a more preferred website by the users. Additionally, the findings from above have enabled the evaluator to understand the concept of an interactive system and evaluate it depending upon the user’s perception. Hence, in conclusion it can be stated that the website or any interactive system should be developed by taking consideration of the comfort that the user will enjoy. Another notable consideration should be the fact that human tends to make errors and the system should be capable of auto-solving the problems.
Bibliography:
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Argos.co.uk. (2018). Argos | Same Day Delivery or Faster In-Store Collection.
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