CMSC 434            Homework #2            Fall 2018

Evaluating a Process

Due on ELMS as a PDF by class time on Tuesday, October 9th.
Dilbert Cartoon from 1996-01-31

For this homework assignment, you will attempt to find a flight to get out of town right after finals! Actually, what you'll be doing is comparing different sites that support the same task...

Your task is to find out the flight number, time, and price of an economy ticket for a flight closest to 10pm on December 22nd of this year, going from Dulles to Dallas.

You will go to each of the following web sites:
   Microsoft Expedia www.expedia.com (for any airline).
   United Airlines www.united.com
   Skiplagged skiplagged.com (for any airline).

For each site, you will perform this task three times and record the following data for each trial:
   - The time it takes (in seconds).
   - The number of pages you visit.
   - The number of switches you have between the mouse and the keyboard.
   - The number of mouse clicks.

Time(secs)# Pages# Device Switches# Mouse Clicks
First Trial    
Second Trial    
Third Trial    


You will turn in three tables like the one above (one table for each site) and write a brief (one page) analysis of the three interfaces for making these reservations, mentioning the interface you liked best and why.

What can you say about the efficiency of each system based on your tiny experiment? What worked, what didn't work? Where were you confused, frustrated, surprised? What did you enjoy? And, most importantly, what recommendations do you have to improve all three systems.

On a different page
, discuss the techniques that you used to collect the requested statistics while doing this homework, if there were any unforeseen problems in concentrating on the task, and in general any problems that arose while you were working on the assignment.








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