HCT416 Activities Unit 1 to 2

Activity 1 - Looking at bad designs

Spend half-an-hour looking at examples of bad human factors design on Michael
Darnell’s Web site [http://www.baddesigns.com/].
• Before reading why the design is bad, spend some time carrying out your own
summative evaluation to spot the problems.
• Choose 3 items examples that you found the most interesting and post your
thoughts on the course bulletin board

Activity 2

a) What is the difference between summative and formative evaluation?

A: Formative evaluation is typically conducted during the development or
improvement of a program or course. Summative evaluation involves making
judgments about the efficacy of a program or course at its conclusion.
b) Why are both needed in the development of interactive computer systems?
A: Formative evaluations focus on determining which aspects of the design
work well or not, and why. These evaluations occur throughout a redesign
and provide information to incrementally improve the interface. Formative
evaluations of interfaces involve testing and changing the product,
usually multiple times, and therefore are well-suited for the redesign
process or while creating a new product.

Summative evaluations describe how well a design performs,

often compared to a benchmark such as a prior version of the design
or a competitor. Unlike formative evaluations, whose goals is to
inform the design process, summative evaluations involve getting the
big picture and assessing the overall experience of a finished
product. Summative evaluations occur less frequently than formative
evaluations, usually right before or right after a redesign.
Activity 3

List all the services which you use which have become automated in the past five years.
In particular think about services where you used to liaise with a human being, either
behind a counter or on a phone line, and where that human being has now been replaced
by a machine. Think critically about each of those services. Have they made your life
easier? Or is it harder work for you now?

Postal workers

Postal workers who sorted mail in the past were replaced by automatic sorting machines
that read and sort mail faster, cheaper, and all day.

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Travel agents

Before the Internet, many people worked as travel agents to help find, arrange, and book
the best deal for traveling. Today, with the Internet and computers, you can do this
yourself without needing a travel agent.

Activity 4

a) What is the ‘productivity paradox'?

The productivity paradox (also the Solow computer paradox) is the peculiar observation
made in business process analysis that, as more investment is made in information
technology, worker productivity may go down instead of up

b) Explain what may cause the productivity paradox and give an argument as to why
the productivity paradox may not exist

Causes of paradox

 Mis-measurement – The gains are real but our current measures miss
them.
 Redistribution – There are private gains, but they come at the expense of
other firms and individuals, leaving little net gain.
 Time lags – The gains take a long time to show up.
 Mismanagement – There are no gains because of the unusual difficulties in
managing IT or information itself.

Argument

Activity 5

Read the following code of ethical practice the American Society of Civil Engineers
[https:// www.asce.org/inside/codeofethics.cfm].

Fundamental Principles - Engineers uphold and advance the integrity, honour and dignity
of the engineering profession by:
1. Using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare;
2. being honest and impartial and serving with fidelity the public, their employers and
clients;
3. Striving to increase the competence and prestige of the engineering profession; and
4. Supporting the professional and technical societies of their disciplines.
Fundamental Canons Does HCI Matter?
1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the
performance of their professional duties.
2. Engineers shall perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents
or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of interest.

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 5. Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of their services and
shall not compete unfairly with others.
6. Engineers shall act in such a manner as to uphold and enhance the honor, integrity, and
dignity of the engineering profession.
7. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers, and
shall provide opportunities for the professional development of those engineers under
their supervision.
Suggest in around 200 words an ethical code of practice for software developers.

Activity 6

a. How do safety engineers work to reduce the impact of accidents?

b. Why is it crucial to reduce the likelihood of accidents happening?

Safety engineers work to reduce the impact of accidents by:

• reducing the likelihood of the accidents happening, and

• reducing the severity of accidents. If the severity of a possible accident cannot be significantly
reduced then its likelihood must be significantly reduced and vice versa.

However, because the consequences of an accident for many safety critical system cannot be
accurately predicted, work to reduce to likelihood of accidents is preferable.

c. What differentiates the failure of a normal interactive system from the failure of a
safety critical system?

The failure of a normal interactive system can be irritating and time consuming, but
typically causes no lasting damage. If safety critical systems fail the consequences can be
severe and permanent. The failure of normal interactive systems only effects the user and
possibly the user's employer. The failure of a safety critical system can affect a great
number of players, external to and not complicit in the working of the system

Activity 7

There are two techniques for improving the usability of interactive systems: design
techniques and summative evaluation techniques.

a. What differentiates the two?

b. Why, in general, is it impossible to evaluate a system for usability during the design
process?

Design techniques are applied during the design process in order to try and produce a system that is
more usable. Summative evaluation techniques are applied when most of the design has been done
and a tangible system has been produced. Evaluation is performed by giving a system to users and
studying how they use it. Therefore evaluation can only take place when there is a tangible system
to study. While design is taking place there will not be such a tangible system.

Activity 8

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 The task artefact cycle describes a common occurrence; namely that a developer
produces a tool for certain task, and then finds that the users of that artefact use it in a
completely different way to that expected.

a. Think of two examples of where you have used a tool in a way that it really was not
designed for, one example being a computer application and one from the wider
world.
b. Now think of the tools/computer programs you use at work or home and see if you
can think of ways in which you could use them in different ways to how they were
intended.

Returning to the mobile phone menu problem we discussed in the usability engineering
section, a

question may be ‘How to prevent users becoming lost in menus?’

Options for this question could be:

1. to flatten menu hierarchies to a maximum depth of three,

2. to give textual feedback as to the current menu display (e.g. display the text ‘Address
book : Edit :

Add number’ to show that the user has selected the ‘Address book’ option from the main
menu,

the ‘Edit’ option from the Address book menu, and ‘Add number’ option from the edit
menu.

3. to give graphical feedback as to how deep the user is in the menu hierarchy by shifting
each new

menu selected a little down and to the left, giving the impression of stacking up menus.

For each of these options there are several criteria effecting whether or not it is a good
design decision:

1. Screen real estate

2. Limited functionality

3. Accurate user knowledge as to where they are in the hierarchy

Now we can go through discussing each of these criteria for each of the options.

1. If menu depth is kept to a maximum of three then:

• this has no real effect on screen real estate

• it limits the functions that can be placed in the phone. Say a maximum of six items per
menu can

be displayed, then there is a maximum of 258 functions that the phone can perform,

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• keeping the menu hierarchy flat, improves the chances of the user remembering where
they are.

2. If textual feedback is given then:

• there will be problems with screen real estate, textual descriptions take up a lot of
space,

• there is no limit to the number of functions,

• user knowledge of where they are will be very accurate.

3. If graphical feed back is given then:

• screen real estate can be efficiently used,

• there is no limit to the number of functions,

• the user will have a prompt as to where they are in the hierarchy, but not a very
accurate one.

So for the question we have identified three options and three criteria which effect those
options.

Activity 9

Rapid prototyping differs in one crucial respect to design by guidelines and usability
engineering. What is it?

Rapid prototyping actually involves users in the design, whereas the other techniques for
user centred design rely on more abstract theories of user behaviour.