Seminar 2 - Individual Post - Edwin Li

This time I will present to you a theory regarding evaluation. Most of the theories are from chapter 13 and 15 in the course literature. I will dicuss how to apply ideas and concepts on different parts of our project, and thus I will be preparing for next day’s seminar.

We will evaluate our interface elements such as dialog boxes, buttons and colored displays etc. by using a so called heuristic analysis. By falling back onto heuristics we can answer questions about user control, whether our language is formulated in a simple and yet informative way, if our tips and dialog boxes are helpful, when to show messages (responsiveness), if there’s any redundancy and if it’s easy to make errors. We will try to simulate use cases with help from our scenarios and personas as well as our own fabrications and then to make sure no usability problems will prevail in our final product. Perhaps we will let real users test our prototype to empirically deduce any problems they will encounter, but we will mostly try to use our own capabilities when finding any usability problems, using our so called expert crit.

We think our main concern will be navigation, and thus I believe we will gain from analysing the evaluation of large websites, since they are also prone to have navigation problems. Here, the contribution from Nielsen (1988) in form of the six guidelines will be immensely valuable. Furthermore, I believe the predictive model known as the GOMS model will be helpful in assisting with navigation, by using the schematic picture of the design.

I don’t think cognitive walkthroughs will suit our needs since it doesn’t involve any users. Since our interface is a highly interactive one, I believe we’d gain more value from analysing the problem solving process from the users’ perspective rather than from the view of a third party. Although this is only speculative, I believe a true design process is seldom black and white, and that in practice, ideas from both disciplines will be used.  

When we think we have captured all functions necessary for every-day use, we will do a summative evaluation to make sure all standards are being upheld.

Finally, I believe we need to specify user requirements explicitly, and along with them a set of milestones.