QUESTION 4

I. The five things that are wrong with this interface are;
A) The interface is not legible, many of the words cannot be read properly,
which is a big design flaw.

B) Font Fiascos is also one of the things wrong with this interface. There are
too many fonts on the interface. This will lead to a higher chance of bugs
or design inconsistences.

C) The interface will make the user think a lot. Since the interface lacks
simplicity, the user will have to think too much before recognizing the
scroll bar. This will make people to avoid using the application since it lacks
simplicity.

D) The design lacks of contrast. The user using this application must see it
with clear and fresh contrast. This can help the user to better read and
understand the info there, and thus knows how to conduct the operation.

E) Inconsistent Style is also one of the five things that are wrong with this
interface. This does not mean that the mashup style is not good, but the
overall interface has a huge and ugly visual conflict. The only best way is to
redesign it. An excellent User Interface design should be consistent on the
style in order to make users clearly understand and respond to the given
content.

II. The five design rules that have been violated in this interface is;
a) Strive for Consistency: Consistent sequences of actions should be required
in similar situations. Identical terminology should be used in consistent
color, layout, capitalization, fonts and should be employed throughout.
 b) Make Errors as Impossible as Possible. As much as possible, design the
system so that the user cannot make a serious error. If an error is made,
the system should be able to detect the error and offer simple,
comprehensible mechanisms for handling error.

c) Design Dialogs to Yield Closure: Sequences of actions should be organized

into groups with a beginning, middle and end. The informative feedback at
the completion of a group actions gives the operators the satisfaction of
accomplishment, a sense of relief, the signal to drop contingency plans and
options from their minds, and an indication that the way is clear to prepare
for the next group of actions.

d) Enable frequent users to use shortcuts. As frequency of use increases, so

do the user’s desire to reduce the number of interactions and to increase
the peace of interaction. Abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands
and macro facilities are very helpful to an expert user.

e) Offer Informative feedback: For every operator action, there should be

some system feedback. For frequent and minor actions, the response can
be modest, while for infrequent and major actions, the response should be
more substantial.

QUESTION 2

PACT Analysis For interface of Nameless Paint

People; There are many ways in which people differ from one another,
from physical appearance to the attributes they have. People have
different personalities and react to things in different ways. This depends
largely on the five senses i.e. hear, sight, smell, taste, and touch, so it is
important for my interface to be friendly, usable, pleasurable for all kinds
of people. An example of how this can be done, is by making sure that my
interface caters for people with disabilities such as visibility impairment
(such as long/short sight, color blinded etc.). The website should cater for
this too. People also differ in psychological terms and so it is necessary for
my interface to be accessible to those people who are not so able.
People differ in their desires and capabilities, so it is important that the
interface caters for all levels of cognitive ability. The users will be based all
around the world. The users will most probably have different levels of
computer literacy/knowledge, different language skills and different
reasoning and physical abilities.

Computer Literacy/Knowledge: Users accessing our interface may be

beginners, intermediate or experts, it is therefore, essential for the website
to cater for all its users. So, it is most probable that even those users that
are very computer/internet literate may still be beginners when they visit
our interface. Cognitive Abilities: Because people are better at recognizing
things than remembering them, our interface will be primarily 'see and
click'. This is so that users will be able to easily interact with the interface.

Physical Abilities: It is essential for our interface to be accessible for those

users that are physically challenged. There are different types of visual
impairment. We will need to make sure that the contents in our site can be
zoom for such users. We will need to ensure that the quality of the
interface is undisturbed when the information is zoom as this may cause
confusion for many users.
The second difficulty is color blindness. Color blind people have great
difficulty distinguishing between certain colors, such as, yellow and blue
and red and green. We will need to make sure that colors that can affect
color-blindness are not mixed.
The third difficulty is moderate to fully blind users. We will need to ask
ourselves how to cater for blind users. We need to consider whether users
can access the information in audio form. This is particularly important
where images are used. We need to consider, describing the images in text
form, in such a way that blind users can effectively understand the
information about the images in the same way all other users can. Images
include tables, pictures charts, etc.

Activities: There are many characteristics of activities that designers need

to consider. These can be both simple and complex. Before considering the
characteristics need to be looked at it is essential that throughout the
project, the overall objectives are kept in mind and not forgotten about.
Below are the main characteristics of activities that need to be considered:
One of the main activities that users will have available to them is a
navigation map of the royal mile. It will have hotspots which people can
click on; this will lead to a page with information on that page. There will
also be forums and blogs so that people can give their opinions etc. There
will also be a search facility for users to use if the need to. The search
facility will allow easy access of information.

Context: Activities constantly occur in a context; this section looks at how

to examine the two collectively. The context type that affects my interface
is the physical environment. Physical environment- this is important for me
so because I can understand what the physical environment of the
interface will be. For example, the interface should cater for people who
may be logging on to my web site in an area that has slow internet access;
this will be a problem if they decide that the website is taking its time to
upload. Users will access the interface in different places such as the
home, workplace, educational institutions or internet cafes; therefore, it is
vital that the interface is accessible for those visitors that use different
resolutions, operating systems, color depths platforms and browsers.

Technologies: Technologies can carry out a variety of operations and

usually consist of a lot of data, or information. Interaction is required and
so there is a need for a range of styles. There are many different
technologies that users can use to access our interface. they tend to use
different operating systems (such as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Mac X
etc.), browsers (e.g., Internet Explorer 5 or 6, Netscape 7, Mozilla, Opera,
JAWS, Chrome, Brave (screen reader for blind user)) and platforms
(Windows, Macintosh etc.).
ii. Propose a prototype of the interface which would satisfy the
learnability and simplicity principles of usability.

iii. Evaluate the Usability of your system, bearing in mind your users’ needs
and how the usability principles are implemented.
Usability evaluation of my system is as given below
Usability is a measure of the ease with which a system can be learned and
used, its safety, effectiveness and efficiency and the attitude of its users
towards it . Because users principally know a system by its interface,
designers' efforts at improving usability are directed at improving
interfaces. Confusion and frustration may be avoided by making sure that
system reactions to user actions are logical responses, and that the system
reacts appropriately when a user's command is not exactly the same as
that specified by the designer. Also, system reactions as well as
terminology used should be consistent and uniform across situations. For
example: 'quit' should always close a program and should not be used
interchangeably with 'stop'. To avoid impatience, the time that elapses
between a user's command and the system's response to that command
should be as short as possible. If the system cannot respond within a few
seconds, it has to make clear, for example by displaying a small hourglass,
that it is indeed processing the command. Also, a page that is too difficult
to survey may cause discomfort and thereby loss of concentration to the
user e. First, the user should always be able to see where she or he is on
the Internet. Designers are advised to organize the buttons that are
important for moving through the pages of a site in a navigation panel,
which should be clear and consistent throughout the site.

QUESTION 1

SCENARIO
The interface we are evaluating is the newly revamped School of
Interactive Arts & Technology (GTUC) website, which serves many students
and faculty members on a daily basis. Despite following a very structured
layout based off the Simon Fraser University (SFU) branding guideline,
many issues still arise that need to be dealt with and fixed. The role of our
production evaluation team is to do a quick usability study by analyzing the
interface based on Nielsen’s heuristics and identify design problems in the
system. We will then present our findings in a summary with suggested
improvements to aid in improving the website. Our objective is to utilize
the GTUC website goals in the brief to consider what errors may prevent
the website from reaching its goals, and choose critical tasks that best
meet these goals to increase usability.

METHODOLOGY
In this report, our team of experts used a heuristic evaluation approach in
analyzing the usability of the new proposed GTUC website. The team
consisted of three team members: Diana Luong, Marie Cheung, and Jan
Castro. Furthermore, these individuals are current GTUC students and have
been practicing interaction and usability for several years making them
double experts on the matter. A team of three was formed over having a
single evaluator or having over five evaluators due to having a higher
effectiveness in finding results (see bottom graph http://www.useit.com
/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html).
Heuristic evaluation is often used in the design industry due to it’s
affordability, quickness, and effectiveness. This type of evaluation is the
process of comparing the current interface with a set of usability
principles. In addition, these usability principles or “heuristics” are adapted
from Jakob Nielsen’s original 9 guiding principles. Below is a list of said
heuristics. Further information on these adapted heuristics can be found
on http://carmster.com/432/uploads/Main/HeuristicEv aluation.pdf.
Any violations of these 9 heuristics would be noted by the evaluators (see
appendix 2) and used to inform recommendations on creating a more
usable interface. Using these 9 heuristics as the guiding principles of using
the interface, the team began to plan the scenarios and tasks upon which
these heuristics will be tested. Based on the 15 tasks given in the original
web design brief (http://carmster.com/432/index.php?
n=Main.GTUC_Web_Site_Brief), 5 Tasks were chosen to conduct the
evaluation, due to their vitalness in obtaining the website’s 9 goals.

1. Simple and natural dialog

2. Speak the user’s language
3. Minimize user’s memory load
4. Be consistent
5. Provide feedback
6. Provide clearly marked exits
7. Provide shortcuts
8. Deal with errors in a positive manner
9. Provide help

SCENARIO Section 1
METHODOLOGY Section 2
LIST OF GUIDING HEURISTICS:
Task 1: Describe what kind of school GTUC is. List 2 characteristics of GTUC.
Task 2: Outline what concentrations undergraduate students can study in
GTUC, and what degree options are available to them.
Task 3: Outline which Graduate degree programs are offered in GTUC, and
how to apply.
Task 4: You met Bernhard Riecke at a conference in Germany last semester.
You are interested in doing your master’s degree at GTUC and you want to
find out if he will supervise you. Find his contact information, supply a list
of 3 research areas Prof. Riecke is interested in, and list 1 project he has
done in the past.

Task 5: Post a job on the GTUC website

The first four goals of the website are geared towards providing
information about GTUC and what makes GTUC different from other
schools. Naturally we chose task 1 through 3 as they directly pertain to
obtaining the vital information from the website. Furthermore, the first
four tasks we chose are highly reminiscent of scenarios of which we
believe the majority of end users will go through. Task 4 was also picked as
it could test the ability of the website to provide information on projects,
connecting with contacts, and finding GTUC staff members. Similarly, task 5
was selected as it was the only task that could test goal number six (see
chart below).
LIST OF TASKS UTILIZED TO CONDUCT EVALUATION:
Describe what kind of school GTUC is. List 2 characteristics of GTUC.
Outline what concentrations undergraduate students can study in GTUC,
and what degree options are available to them.
Outline which Graduate degree programs are offered in GTUC, and how to
apply.
You met Bernhard Riecke at a conference in Germany last semester. You
are interested in doing your masters degree at GTUC and you want to find
out if he will supervise you. Find his contact information, supply a list of 3
research areas Prof. Riecke is interested in, and list 1 project he has done in
the past.
Post a job on the GTUC website.

TABLE SUMMARIZING WHICH TASKS MATCH WHICH WEBSITE GOALS:

Website goal as outlined in the design brief Which
tasks
influence
given
goal

1. Successfully convey what kind of research Task 1,

school GTUC is; what the students, professors, Task 2,
and community are like; and what the campus, Task 3
labs, and resources are like.
2. Provide users with clearly written and Task 1,
accessible information as well as visual cues Task 2,
about our school so they can easily identify the Task 3
traits that differentiate GTUC from other schools.
3. Provide users with clearly written and Task 1,
accessible information about our degree Task 2,
programs so they can quickly identify the types of Task 3,
programs that will interest them, the associated Task 4
degree requirements, the admissions
information, and the kinds of projects and
courses involved.
4. Ensure visitors can easily identify the types of Task 1,
research being done at GTUC and who they can Task 2,
contact in each area. Task 3,
Task 4
5. Ensure users can easily find faculty, their Task 4
biography information, links to their research, and
their contact information.
6. Provide an interface which encourages faculty, Task 5
students, and staff in the community to
 contribute content to the website (submit
projects and publications to be displayed, edit
their profile pages, post jobs, news, notices), and
make it easy to find common resources.
7. Have a web presence that’s lively, rich with All Tasks
visuals, and frequently updated with current
information and events.
8. Have an easy to use website that provides All Tasks
effective cues to your location at all times,
provides appropriate feedback to the user, has
minimal errors, and is organized in a way that
visitors can intuitively navigate through the site.
Provide a site that people want to come back to.
9. Increase the number of people finding our Task 1,
website via keyword searches. Task 2,
Task 3

After formalizing and completing the criteria of evaluation, each team

member individually evaluated the website to check if it adhered to the
heuristics defined earlier. Secondly, once the individual evaluations were
complete, the team gathered to summarize and compile their individual
findings. Individual evaluations were done rather than analyzing as a group
because of implicit advantages such as; creating unbiased results,
evaluations not influenced by others, and higher variety in problems
found. Using affinity diagramming, the violations of the heuristics were
grouped together. Violations were ranked using a 0-4 scale adapted from
Nielsen’s severity scale

SCALE OF VIOLATIONS:
0 = I don't agree that this is a usability problem at all
1 = Cosmetic problem only: need not be fixed unless extra time is available
on project
2 = Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority
3 = Major usability problem: important to fix, so should be given high
priority
4 = Usability catastrophe: imperative to fix this before product can be
released
The five recommendations we later suggest, to employ on the GTUC
website, are based off violations with a usability severity ranking of a 3 or a
4.
From our Heuristics Evaluation, we have results that suggest that
improvement can be made in certain aspects of the GTUC website. We
used Nielson’s Severity Ratings for Usability Testing to help us determine
the most important findings that would suggest further investigation and
potential improvement. We found broken and redundant links and
consistency problems (although not as severe) throughout the entire
website. We also found the Natural and Simple Dialogue and Using the
User’s Language heuristics violated quite a few times throughout many of
the tasks that we tested. Below is a list of our usability problems ordered
based on expert consensus and severity ratings. On the pages following we
have grouped related problems together and have included examples and
screen shots that explain our thoughts.
RESULTS & INTERPRETATION
From our Heuristics Evaluation, we have results that suggest that
improvement can be made in certain aspects of the GTUC website. We
used Nielson’s Severity Ratings for Usability Testing to help us determine
the most important findings that would suggest further investigation and
potential improvement. We found broken and redundant links and
consistency problems (although not as severe) throughout the entire
website. We also found the Natural and Simple Dialogue and Using the
User’s Language heuristics violated quite a few times throughout many of
the tasks that we tested. Below is a list of our usability problems ordered
based on expert consensus and severity ratings. On the pages following we
have grouped related problems together and have included examples and
screen shots that explain our thoughts.

RESULTS & INTERPRETATION Section 3

1. Broken and redundant links. (Severity 4, found by All)
2. Does not provide feedback, and allows you to submit incomplete form.
(Severity 4, found by All)
3. Confusing lingo. (Severity 4, found by Marie)
4. Concentrations not clearly defined. (Severity 3, found by Jan and Marie)
5. User’s Language - confusing. (Severity 2, found by All)
6. Degree programs information is Inadequate and has no clear navigation.
(Severity 2, found by All) 7. Memory Load - Too much writing, lack of
efficiency. (Severity 2, found by Marie and Diana)
8. Broken Links (Severity 2, found by Jan and Marie)
9. No help provided to help describe form’s field boxes. (Severity 2, found
by Jan and Marie)
10. Overall consistency issues. (Severity 1, found by All)
11. Consistency issues - common look and feel and overall use of the
website. (Severity 1, found by All)
12. Does not deal with errors in a positive (Severity 1, found by Jan and
Marie)
13. Searching - ‘About GTUC’ doesn’t direct to About Us page. (Severity 1,
found by Diana)
14. Clear language. (Severity 1, found by Jan)
15. Natural and simple dialogue - Funding is put in the wrong page.
(Severity 1, found by Diana)
16. Naturally Bernhard Riecke should be linked on his publications.
(Severity 1, found by Jan)
17. Clear exits absent. 18. User’s language when finding professors
(Severity 1, found by Dian
 SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
1. Terminology (Consistent terminology/lingo)
We recommend to conduct a thorough sweep of the links, in particular the
individual faculty profiles, to aid in user’s search of information. In
particular, we were unable to finish our task of finding more information of
a faculty member’s previous projects because a link was broken.

2. Hyperlinks (Thorough sweep of links - in particular the faculty page)

Another suggestion is to provide definitions for fields and add required
links in order to help filter out job postings such as spam as well as aid in
user input to provide consistent information to students. Although one of
the website goals is to provide students to contribute to the website, the
only form of contribution we see is the job posting. At the very basis of the
form, we feel that although it is straightforward to use, it does not provide
much information on what should be written in each field of the form and
there seems not to be any way to filter out the postings and important
information that should be filled out is not clear.

3. Job Posting (Foul-proof job form)

Define concentrations by providing clear explanations of each
concentration, highlighting their respective names, and linking them to
proper information (i.e. PDFs) is another recommendation that we have on
the interface. Although the concentrations are not as heavily promoted
anymore, it is still valuable information for those who are interested in
concentrations to provide them a guide of how to choose their courses to
those who need it.

4. Clearly Defined Concentrations (Clearly defining concentrations

individually and have them linked)
Define concentrations by providing clear explanations of each concentration,
highlighting their respective names, and linking them to proper information (i.e. PDFs) is
another recommendation that we have on the interface. Although the concentrations
are not as heavily promoted anymore, it is still valuable information for those who are
interested in concentrations to provide them a guide of how to choose their courses to
those who need it.