HCI EXAM I

One goal in requirements analysis is to ensure proper reliability. However, which of the following is not a responsibility of the human interface designer?

Actions must function correctly. Displayed data must reflect the database contents. The software architecture, hardware components, and network support must ensure high availability. Ensure privacy, security and data integrity

Suppose you are designing a touch-screen interface for a movie-rental kiosk in a supermarket. You want to provide the ability for the user to search for a movie and then provide information on the cost. Which of the following would be the most effective way to improve search performance?

After each letter is typed in, update a browse-able list of movies whose names are consistent with the input the user has typed in so far.

In the absence of empirical data, human-interface guidelines are usually based on:

Best-guess judgments from experienced professionals

Simulating the day in the life of the user should be a part of the expert-review process. Which of the following methods fulfills this goal?

Cognitive walkthrough

Sara works for a large corporation and spends a great deal of her workday at a computer terminal. Occasionally, she'll perform a series of actions and receive a confusing error message on the screen which will impede her work and not allow her to proceed. At this point, Sara should:

Complain to the designer (in person or via on-line feedback) who did not provide a more convenient mechanism for completing her task.

After a system's release, evaluation during active use is necessary to provide interface refinements to support even higher levels of service. Of the following evaluation methods, which one offers the most direct way to determine which errors occur most often in a system interface?

Continuous user-performance data logging.

Successful design is usually the result of..

Copying ideas from products already established in the market.

By presenting users with complex procedures, cluttered displays, inadequate and inconsistent functionality, and incomplete feedback, which of the following can occur among the users?

Debilitating stress and anxiety that can lead to poor performance. Frequent minor and occasional serious errors. Job dissatisfaction.

Controlled experiments and usability tests are two different ways to test the effectiveness of a user interface. The following list of answer choices are properties of testing methods. Choose from below properties that are true of usability tests: (Select ALL that apply)

Designed to find flaws in user interfaces rapidly. Outcome is a report with recommended changes.

After task analysis has been completed, the designer must choose an interaction style for the interface. Which of the following is the interaction style when a designer creates a visual representation of the world of actions?

Direct manipulation

Which of the following should have its own user-interface architect?

Each Project

Which of the following are valid limitations of usability testing (Select ALL that apply)?

Emphasizes first-time usage. Provides limited coverage of the interface features.

One technique that expert reviews have at their disposal is to create a bird's eye view of an interface. This is done by laying out a full set of printed screens on a floor or wall. What advantage does this view give the reviewer?

Enables the reviewer to quickly see if the fonts, colors and terminology are consistent and that multiple developers have adhered to a common style.

Designers are encouraged to consider the plasticity of their designs when building a successful interface. What does this mean?

Ensure smooth conversion over different display sizes, such as cell phones to large plasma screens. The ability to translate into multiple languages for people across the world. Provide compatibility with accessibility-support devices for disabled users.

Which one of the following is NOT one of the four E's of management strategies?

Expertise

By writing a statement of plausible impacts by an interactive system, it will only elevate fears or force developers to make unreasonable compromises. It is best to record these impacts and only reveal them at the end of the development process, at which point they can be fixed

False

Creating low-fidelity prototypes out of slips of paper, pieces of plastic and tape offers little benefit to interface design, since those real-world objects are difficult to translate to a digital setting.

False

Current research in Human-Computer Interaction is largely done by introspection and intuition. Due to the fact that the field is relatively new, there is little need for a scientific method for interface research.

False

Designing interfaces to help meet the needs of disabled users will inevitably hurt normal user's productivity.

False

It is difficult to adapt the user interface development process to systems and applications that contain little or no user interface elements, e.g. embedded systems, e.g. database design.

False

Once a designer gains enough experience, it is wasteful of time and resources to evaluate their creations thoroughly.

False

One of the Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design suggests that providing feedback for every user action is too distracting for the user.

False

Since design is inherently creative and unpredictable, there are no methods available to guide a designer.

False

System preferences for Universal Access features are still not easily selectable in either the Mac OSX or Microsoft Windows products requiring installation of special tools when the product is first purchased for the physically-challenged user.

False

There is a significant diversity among humans with regard to physical abilities, backgrounds, cultures and age. However, by simply designing an interface for the average, generic human, people of various types will be able to conform to the design without toil

False

When using experts for an expert review, it is important that the expert selected have little knowledge of the project and no meaningful relationship with the organization.

False

Careful selection of users can help build successful participatory design experiences in which of the following ways: (Select ALL that apply)

Increases participants' sense of importance. Emphasizes the seriousness of the project.

Subjective satisfaction is of modest importance. Retention is obtained by frequent use. Operator training time is expensive, so ease of learning is important.

Industrial and commercial uses.

Universal usability deals with accommodating diverse users by

Innovative design that allow user controlled flexibility.

Some older adults avoid helpful computer-based devices, such as Automated Teller Machines (ATM), because they are anxious about breaking the device or making an embarrassing mistake. Which of the following would be a good starting point to help alleviate this fear of an ATM?

Interview older adults who are nonusers of computers to help understand the source of their anxiety.

One goal in requirements analysis is to ascertain the user's needs. Which of the following methods is the most effective way to serve the user's goals?

Invest a significant amount of time into task analysis to determine what tasks and subtasks must be carried out

Lengthy training periods are acceptable to obtain rapid, error-free performance, even when the users are under stress.

Life-critical systems.

By emphasizing recognition over recall with the use of structured menus, consistent terminology, and high interface apparency, which of the following user groups will benefit most?

Novice users

Ease of learning, low error rates, and subjective satisfaction are paramount because use is frequently discretionary and competition is fierce.

Office, home and entertainment applications

Eric runs an on-line gourmet foods business store on the World Wide Web. In order to better serve his customers, he wishes to ensure his interface meets his users' needs. However, he is a small business and his testing budget is modest. Which of the following testing methods would be most appropriate?

Place a web-based survey on the website to identify the problems users are having.

Guidelines documents can help designers solve design problems that occur for a project. How do these documents assist the designer?

Promote consistency among multiple designers in terms of terminology, visual look and action sequences.

What is the maximum amount of characters that expert users would prefer to type rather than change their input device, such as switching from keyboard to mouse?

Six to eight

Of the five usability measures for practical evaluation, which one is usually accomplished by interviews and surveys?

Subjective satisfaction.

In Norman's model of human-computer interaction, what does he call the Gulf of Evaluation?

The mismatch between the system's representation and the user's expectations.

Expert reviews are proven to be an effective way to evaluate interfaces. Which of the following are true about expert reviewers? (Select ALL that apply)

They can use a variety of methods, such as heuristic evaluation, consistency inspection and cognitive walkthrough. They should take training courses, be cognizant of guidelines, and try the interface as close as possible to a realistic work environment. They can be used early or late in the design phase.

In the initial decades of software development, technically-oriented programmers designed programming languages and applications for themselves and their peers. What was a side effect of this phenomenon?

They created complex interfaces due to their substantial experience.

A solution to providing a sense of control to users is to expand the control panel model whereby users specify personal preferences and system parameters.

True

Big data refers to extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions

True

Designers should be conscious of the type of input users can generate, and design the system so that users cannot make a serious error.

True

If a user interface for a system causes fatal errors and is demonstrated to be difficult to understand, the designers and developers would be open to a lawsuit alleging improper design.

True

Legal issues may surface such as privacy, freedom of speech or copyright when dealing with user interface-intensive system design.

True

Macro HCI theories focus on case studies of user experience over weeks and months, in realistic usage contexts with rich social engagement.

True

Micro HCI theories focus on measurable performance (such as speed and errors) on multiple standard tasks taking seconds or minutes in laboratory environments

True

Social impact analysis may address concerns or potential barriers to a successful user interface implementation

True

Subjectively satisfying the user is an important usability measure for determining the effectiveness of an interface

True

The Automated Teller Machine Case Study design example illustrated where what may have started out as a relative straightforward task turned into a methodical study of how to improve a user interface to the machines that were not only accepted but embraced by a wide variety of users (i.e. banking customers).

True

The case studies in DTUI6 Chapter 6 were chosen strategically to highlight design contexts, various applications, and incremental continuous improvement.

True

When projects are not well defined, designers can find it useful to develop scenarios based on what happens when the user performs typical tasks in a workday. By writing these scenarios of usage, it provides an easy way to describe a system to even non-technical people involved in the project

True

iOS Human Interface Guidelines are based only on Apple product technology experience and not related to any recent research, theory or experience outside of Apple

True

Gregg is a frequent traveler who, like many of us, use an on-line travel website to book flights for business trips and vacations to get the best prices. However, the website if often uses has a serious bug: if he types the date for the trip in an incorrect format, the system freezes and leaves him unable to continue his task. Which of the following would be the best way to help solve Gregg's problem?

Update the interface so that the user cannot input improper dates, such as providing a calendar tool that allow the users to select a day and month from valid choices.

Which of the following evaluation methods involves participants that are chosen to represent the intended user communities and then perform tasks with the interface?

Usability testing

The ability for novice users to evolve into power users is one property of a well-designed interface. Which of the following methods might best allow a graceful evolution from novice to expert? (Select ALL that apply.)

Use a single interface that allows the user to increase the complexity of the display when they feel comfortable. Provide hints and online assistance to users on various ways they can perform a certain task.

An effective technique to gain insight into users' motivations for their actions is to:

Use the think aloud method

Display design guidelines recommend that control of the display should be held by the...

User

What is the difference between user-interface designers and traditional ethnographers?

User-interface designers focus on interfaces for the purpose of changing and improving them, whereas traditional ethnographers are just interested in understanding their subjects.

What is the central goal of acceptance testing?

Verify adherence to the requirements.

When there are competitive products in a marketplace that offer similar functionality, which of the following is vital for product acceptance?

Well-engineered usability.

Identify the item below that should not be the driver of a user interface development project

operating system version