Spring 2019 — UCLA Computer Science Department — David G. Kay

FIRST HOMEWORK

This assignment is due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12.

HCI Notebook: As we discussed the first day of class, we expect every student this quarter to carry at (nearly) all times small notebook (as simple as two quarter-folded sheets of paper or as complex as a tablet or smartphone). Whenever you observe a particularly bad example of interaction design (or a particularly good one), jot down the details in your notebook. Often these instances are fleeting and subtle; you may think you'll remember and write it down later, but chances are you won't, which is why we want you to carry the notebook and record the details when they occur.

(a) Register yourself on Piazza by following the link they sent you. (They use the Email address the registrar has for you; if you didn't receive the message at that address, check your spam folder. If you aren't on the roster or waiting list as of Tuesday night of Week 1, it may take a day or two to update Piazza's roster.

(b) Pick two different instances of bad design from your HCI notebook. These may involve computer systems or any human-created object. For this part of the assignment, you may pick relatively small, simple instances (like the signage in Boelter Hall, but don't pick ones we discussed in class). For each,

• Describe the relevant details of the system (if your system wouldn't be familiar to the typical computer science student, give enough background description to explain it).
  
  
• Explain the problem(s) you encountered, relating them to failures of usability goals or principles. (Jakob Nielsen's usability heuristics are available at http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html.)


• Suggest a way to remedy each problem, again relating each suggestion to the usability goal or principle that it addresses.

Your description of each instance should be shorter than one single-spaced page of text (though with illustrations it may actually span more than one page).

(c) Pick a web site somewhere at ucla.edu that you use frequently. Analyze it as described above, describing its HCI flaws in terms of Nielsen's guidelines, but in somewhat more detail involving more than one feature or function. As an upper limit, don't spend more than an hour exploring the site and making notes, and don't write more than two single-spaced pages of analysis (which again may span more pages than that as you include illustrations).

Your analysis should address who the intended users of the site are, what the users want to achieve by using the site, how the site failed to serve these users and their goals (including, if applicable, characteristics of the users and their backgrounds that the site designers didn't understand or accommodate well), and what makes your suggested improvements better.

Your analysis should focus on usability issues rather than pure functionality; while the line is sometimes hard to draw (adding a search feature, for example, is increased functionality that also affects the usability of a site), don't try to solve the problems by making the system into something that it wasn't intended to be.

Submitting your work: You will submit your work via CCLE; it will be set up closer to the due date.

Written by David G. Kay, Winter 2004, based on assignments by Alfred Kobsa and Nayla Nassif. Modified Summer 2007, Summer 2008, and Summer 2010, snd Spring 2019 by David G. Kay.