This is the final exam for the COMP 675 class. It is an individual take-home exam, and you are not allowed to discuss it with anybody else, work on it in a group, or seek help from someone else. You may use textbooks, course notes, or other material, but you must formulate the text for your answers yourself. With the exception of definitions and short quotations with acknowledgements, any text or other material that is taken from other sources will not count, and you may risk a lower grade or other sanctions for plagiarizing as described in the student handbook.

Mark the answer you think is correct. Unless otherwise noted, there is only one correct answer. Each question is worth 3 points, for a total of 30 in Part 1.

1. What is an important advantage of command-line interfaces over graphical user interfaces?

• The mental load for the user is low (recall over recognition).
• The user is not distracted by an abundance of menus, icons, toolbars, etc.
• They work well for repetitive jobs like payroll processing or billing.
• Complex operations can be performed more efficiently, e.g. through command languages.

1. Why should modal dialog boxes be used with care?

• They are very disruptive and prevent users from continuing their task.
• They have high resource requirements on the computer system.
• They frequently lead to application or system crashes.
• They are difficult to program because they have to work across applications.

1. Under which circumstances is the use of CAPITAL LETTERS appropriate in screen layout and design?

• Never, because text in capital letters is more difficult to read.
• To better distinguish text from the numbers when text and numbers are mixed.
• To emphasize important items like field names, titles, or main categories.
• It should be used as often as possible because it reduces the number of bits required for the representation of characters.

2. The automatic code generation feature of user interface development tools can be very useful, but it can also be a disadvantage. What is the potential problem with automatic code generation?

• In the long run, it might put software developers out of work.
• The generated code can be inefficient and unnecessarily complex.
• Automatically generated code is very difficult to port across different platforms.
• The generated code typically contains more errors than code written by programmers.

1. Out of the following user interface prototypes, which one has the lowest fidelity?

• A simulation of the interactive user interface, e.g. implemented in Visual Basic.
• A storyboard presentation.
• A textual description in a few paragraphs.
• A series of drawings prepared with a graphics package.

1. In which phase of the UI design cycle should evaluation be performed?

• Throughout the design cycle.
• After the elicitation of user requirements.
• After prototyping.
• After implementation

1. Which usability testing method can be applied before the actual design of the product or system begins?

• Contextual inquiry.
• Focus groups.
• Heuristic evaluation.
• Co-discovery.

2. What is an important purpose of developing prototypes for a user interface?

• Developers use them to get familiarized with the tools they use.
• Users can give early feedback, which can be more easily integrated into the design process.
• Prototypes can be used for marketing purposes long before the actual product is available.
• This way the user interface design can be completely separated from the development of the underlying system.

1. 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?

• The bandwidth of the auditory channel is more limited than that of the visual channel.
• Computers would have to understand many different languages and dialects.
• It requires speech recognition by computers, which as of now is too error-prone and consumes too many resources.
• Speech output by computers sounds rather unnatural.

1. Why have menus become a practically indispensable part of current user interfaces?

• They allow an efficient formulation of complex input commands.
• They minimize cursor movements, thus making input actions more efficient.
• They provide quick access to frequently used commands (recognition over recall).
• They can be adapted easily to the specific preferences of individual users.

In this part of the exam, you must answer the questions in one or two paragraphs. Each question is worth 10 points, for a total of 20 in Part 2.

1. What are important aspects that make the design of Web pages different from regular, non-Web based graphical user interfaces?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Compare the use of menus, toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts for the selection of commands by identifying their respective advantages and drawbacks. Give examples for situations in which their use is appropriate and inappropriate.

In this part of the exam, you need to evaluate user interface and usability aspects of a specific type of application programs: Web search engines. Your task is to select a search engine, and evaluate it with respect to the interaction capabilities and main benefits it offers to users, and the possible difficulties and drawbacks users have to face. The task consists of two subtasks: First, you will define important user requirements and evaluation criteria for search engines in general, and then you will use these requirements and evaluation criteria for the assessment of the specific example of a search engine that you selected. Part 3 of the exam contributes up to 50 points to the exam.

Identify and briefly describe three to five important user requirements on Web-based search engines, with particular emphasis on their usability and interaction aspects.

Based on the user requirements, specify three to five important evaluation criteria for such search engines. As far as possible, make your criteria quantitative so that they can be used to measure the performance of the search engine and its user interface in your evaluation.

Briefly sketch the evaluation plan for the search engine you selected, and then perform and describe the evaluation. Use a set of keywords relevant to this course as a test case to illustrate your evaluation.