CMSC 434 Sample Questions

These are based on things like contributed ideas for questions. This is not exhaustive, but should provide a sense of the types of questions that could come up on the midterm exam. Exam questions could merge related things into a single question with sub-parts.

1. Norman discusses three areas of design (Industrial, Interaction, Experience). State which of these can benefit from Human-Centered Design as it has been discussed in class, and why.


2. Discuss the idea of an affordance, how the "Norman Door" principle is tied to this, and provide an example of a type of everyday object that would be useful in describing the concept of a good affordance.


3. What is the distinction that Norman draws between affordances and signifiers?


4. What is the central idea behind a positive transfer effect? Provide an example of somewhere it has occurred.


5. You are tasked with redesigning the CMSC grades server. First, you must provide us with descriptions of two categories of important users that need to be considered. Second, provide two relevant task scenarios in the form discussed in class.


6. State and describe three key differences between low fidelity prototyping and medium fidelity prototyping and why the differences are important.


7. Give an example of a poorly designed system you have interacted with recently. Using terminology from class, describe why it is poorly designed from an HCI perspective.


8. Describe the differences between the Simple Observation and the Think-Aloud within the method of direct observations.


9. What was the main point expressed in class via examples like the incidents with SpaceShipTwo and TransAsia Airways ATR-72?


10. You are developing a new app for exploring Wikipedia articles in a different way than their website provides. What qualitative technique would you use to evaluate your interface. Explain the technique and what the benefits would be of using that particular technique.


11. Explain the four spokes of joy and identify one that is connected to the success of a highly successful product or service and explain how/why.


12. Discuss the affordances, constraints, and mappings of a standard television remote control device.


13. State and explain the three phases of iterative design and how the development of the Nordstrom sunglasses app did or did not embrace this approach.


14. Explain how task-centered and user-centered design focus on different things within the scope of good design practices in human-centered design.


15. In a medium-fidelity prototype, what is the difference between the horizontal and the vertical elements? Explain the purpose of each.


16. Who or what is the illusory customer and are they are a good thing to pursue in design?


17. Give an example of a metric by which we can judge the success of a user interface. Is it a qualitative or quantitative measurement?


18. Within the context of the design of a digital watch with 4 buttons, describe a set of features for the watch and how to accomplish them with the buttons that is an example of good mapping.

Web Accessibility