Objective:
Practice basic comparative evaluation of user interfaces, analytically and empirically.
Instructions:
In this assignment you will compare these 3 different movie info systems (or substitute your favorite system):
- 1-800-555-TELL
- www.moviefone.com
- www.hollywood.com
1) Do a claims analysis of the 3 user interfaces. For each system, identify various UI features or elements, and make claims about + and - tradeoffs associated with those features.
2) Now do an empirical comparison of the 3 interfaces. Identify at least 2 different realistic tasks related to finding information about movies, such as:
- Find a convenient playing time and location of <insert a current movie name here>. To be realistic, the playing time should be a time and location when you actually would want to go see the movie, perhaps on this Friday night.
- Find out what is playing on <insert date here> at your favorite nearby theater.
Recruit some friends to perform these tasks using each of the 3 different systems. For each system and task, write down the total time (in seconds) it takes to perform the task. You should repeat the trials with several different people so that you have several timings for each system-task pair. Try randomizing the order that your subjects perform the systems and tasks to mitigate learning effects. Collect all the data into a spreadsheet.
Analyze the data and make conclusions about the user interfaces of the systems. How do the different user interfaces affect user performance on different types of tasks? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the systems? What data analyses did you perform?
3) Do your empirical findings (data) support your claims analysis (theory)? How? As a result, what might you do as a user interface designer for a movie info system?
4) What is your reaction to this type of evaluation process? How does this relate to science and engineering?
Hand in:
Hard-copy of 2 page report with answers to 1-4. Include a print-out of your spreadsheet as an additional page. Submit in class.