HCI 460

Spring 2016

Craig Miller

Weekly Notes

Assignments

Project 1
Heuristic Evaluation and Cognitive Walkthrough
Due Sunday April 17 before 11:30 PM

Overview

The first project is an individual assignment. For this assignment, you will be performing two expert evaluation methods on an interactive web site. The first method, the heuristic evaluation, applies a list of heuristics capable of identifying common usability problems. The second method, the cognitive walkthrough, requires you to determine one core task for your application and step through the user's actions needed to complete the task.

Website assignment

Based on preferences that you submit to the instructor, you will be assigned an interactive application. If possible, the same application will be used for subsequent projects in the class.

Individual Heuristic Evaluation

Your first step is to complete a heuristic evaluation on your chosen application. Use the guidelines presented in class. We will go over the heuristic evaluation and this table in class. After you have completed your heuristic evaluation individually, post it on the corresponding D2L forum topic. Note that you will not be able to see other evaluations until you have posted your own.

Combined analysis

Review at least two other individual reports for your chosen application. Discussion is encouraged. After reflecting on the individual reports, develop a prioritized list of findings. For reporting your findings, you may present a guideline-by-guideline summary but also consider an organization that would be particularly useful to anyone that might need to respond to your findings (e.g. designer, developer, manager).

Cognitive Walkthrough

Identify one core task for analysis. Perform a cognitive walkthrough on the task. We will cover the cognitive walkthrough in class. While it is important to keep your information short and concise, make sure you answer and document the four questions for each user action. Good, thoughtful answers discuss the user's knowledge and relate it to the interface and the needed action. Simply responding "yes" or "no" to each question is not adequate!

Recommendations

Based on your evaluations, prepare a list of at least three recommendations concerning the design of the application. In some cases, for applications producing a good evaluation, you may decide against any recommendations. In these cases, you should still discuss possible changes and why your group decided against them. Order your list from most important to least important.

Submission

Submit your assignment using the D2L web site. PDF is my preferred format, but I will accept any commonly available format (e.g. Word, HTML). The report should include the following:

  • A short description of your application as well as a description of the users who are most likely to use it (about 2 paragraphs).
  • A summary of the heuristic evaluation.
  • A report from the cognitive walkthrough.
  • List of recommendations.
  • Your initial individual heuristic evaluation.

Notes from the individual heuristic evaluation can be placed in the appendix.

Grading

Generally, any project that closely adheres to the above instructions will receive at least 16 (out of 20) points. Projects that are thoughtful, well-edited, systematic and concise will generally receive 18 or 19 points. A truly outstanding report will receive 20 points. Note that a long report is not necessarily a good report!

A D2L rubric will be used to assess the report.