INL 650 Fall 2006
10/11/06 Midterm Exam Test Form A
Name:
Instructions:
Answer all questions in the answer sheet provided. On Multiple Choice, choose the ONE BEST ANSWER.
Remember to put the letter of your test form on the top of your answer sheet.
Hand in Test, Answer Sheet, and Help Sheets, all with your name.
Multiple Choice
(3 points each)
1. Which of the following are aspects of a system whose effectiveness may be affected by cultural and international diversity?
A) Display of dates follow different conventions in different cultures
B) Layout of text can be affected by differences in languages – such as some languages tend toward longer words.
C) Display of monetary amounts must be flexible enough to handle different currencies
D) Message tone and formality may need to vary from culture to culture
E) All of the above
F) None of the above
2. A major advantage of using participatory design is
A) cheaper in the short term than lower level of involvement by users
B) tends to result in having higher quality information about the users tasks during the design phase
C) organizational politics are reduced over when lower level of user involvement is used
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
3. Which of the following is NOT a well known approach to expert review of usability?
A) Cognitive walkthrough
B) Heuristic evaluation
C) Use case analysis
D) All of the above
4. Which of the following are true of “paper prototypes”?
A) they are suitable for usability testing with users, but not expert rerviews
B) are helpful for detecting usability problems early on
C) are a remnant of obsolete design practices
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
5. Which of the following follows from the general heuristic “match between system and real world”?
A) the system should keep users informed about what is going on
B) information should appear in a natural and logical order
C) users should have a clearly marked way to undo and redo
D) accelerators should speed up the interaction for the expert user
E) all of the above
6. In a study of heuristic evaluation by Nielson
A) some problems were found by all evaluators
B) some evaluators found all problems
C) some problems were not found
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Completion (fill in the blank) (mostly key terms (not all of which are a single word))
(3 points each)
7. In a(n) ________ interface, users communicate with the system in their own human language, rather than using computer languages or graphical representations.
8. Some software tries to adapt to the user’s needs via ________. The system may keep track of what the user does, how often they do it, how many errors they get, etc and adapts parts of the system automatically.
9. Some surveys are designed so that scales present ________ - opposite responses to a question are presented on opposite ends of the scale, with a scale in between so that a respondent can choose a value based on where their feelings fit between the opposites.
10. A(n) ________ interface involves a user working with objects directly on the screen, frequently with a metaphor relating the screen objects to real world objects. Objects and actions are visible; the user causes actions directly and sees results immediately on the screen. This idea is tightly coupled with GUIs because it took graphical and pointing capabilities to make it work.
11. In studies with human subjects (such as usability tests), ________ should be obtained from the subjects; this means that students will be informed of the procedures, potential risks and benefits, and will be asked to sign a statement that they are voluntarily and willingly participating.
12. One part of discount usability engineering, ________ take prototyping to an extreme – with reduced depth of functionality and reduced number of features.
True/False - If false, explain why.
(4 points each)
13. Usability is aided if the user can determine via the interface what the system state is.
14. “Participatory Design” is another name for users being involved in requirements determination and usability testing.
15. The decision to do heuristic evaluation must be based on qualitative factors such as quality; there is no evidence that it will provide a return on invested effort and resources.
16. Careful attention to user-centered design during early stages of development can dramatically reduce development time and cost.
17. Interface building tools can (and do) vary widely in the amount of program code that must be written to build an interface and the amount of time and effort it will take to build the interface.
Short Answer
(6 points each)
18. The concept of “user friendliness” is rather vague and subjective. In fact, there are several distinct aspects of user friendliness. What specific criteria are/could be involved in determining whether a user interface is “user friendly” or has high usability?
19. Psychologists have long studied the limits of human short-term memory. What implications are there for interface design?
20. What are the benefits of establishing design guidelines for an organization or project?
21. In aiming for universal usability, briefly explain at least 5 kinds of differences among users that should be accommodated.
22. Briefly explain 2 major limitations of usability testing (that are significant enough that it is desirable to also use expert reviews).
Problems
(7 points each)
23. Suppose we are evaluating a “smart house” system. Critique the following as a proposed test as part of an acceptance test:
“ After one hour of training, 80% of adult family members should be able to successfully turn the security system on and off, set thermostat and lighting patterns, and be able to temporarily override thermostat and lighting patterns.”
24. Suppose that we have developed the below part of a scenario as part of a prototype of a system. Critique what you can see below – with Shneiderman’s guidelines and principles and/or Nielsen’s heuristics. All points need not be in the same direction (positive or negative), and some may be more significant than others.
