CMSC 434 - Fall 2007
Prof Guimbretiere

Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction

Homework #6:
(Due 11/05/07)

1) (10 points) Cognitive walk though

Describe the key steps of a cognitive walk through.

2) (90 points) Usability report

Using the nine Nielsen heuristics from the reading, write a usability report for the following tasks:

• Finding an article about heuristic analysis of cell phones at http://www.hcibib.org.

• Browsing for and finding a children's book at http://www.childrenslibrary.org/.

For each site, include the following elements (please explain all your answers):

• (5 points) A description of the primary persona targeted by this site.  (Your persona should be general enough to describe a meaningful group of target user, descriptive enough to cover attributes or possible habits relating to the persona's use/perception of the site, colorful enough to be interesting and lifelike, but not so narrow as to be confused with a concrete description of a specific individual.)

• (10 points) A description of the persona's goals (at least 5).  End goals should be prioritized above other goals.

• (10 points) An overview of how the site addresses each of the persona's goals.  This should be based on specific elements or features on the site, and thus a bit more specific than the example in the reading.

• (20 points) Using the Nielson heuristics as a basis, describe the strong points as well as the weak points of the site (at least 2 weak points and 2 strong points). At least a total of 4 heuristics should be addressed in this question (i.e. ≥2 heuristics that reveal strong points, and ≥2 heuristics that reveal weak points). For each point listed, provide a specific example of how the site follows (or fails to follow) a given heuristic. For each weak point, provide a severity ranking and suggest a potential solution. It is important that your evaluation be performed from the persona perspective, not from your perspective.

Presentation:  Please use nested bulleted or numbered lists as appropriate and separate the work for the two sites into two sections.

Grading:  In addition to completeness, scores will be based on the degree to which you demonstrate synthesis of the relevant readings and the heuristics, the depth of your evaluation, and the logic and clarity of your analysis.