This week, we have been discussing minimalist approaches to help and documentation. This Friday's activity asks you to read a case study on minimalist instruction titled "Smalltalk scaffolding: a case study of minimalist instruction" by Mary Beth Rosson, available from the ACM Digital Library (www.acm.org/dl). In reading the article, consider why (and if) a minimalist approach seems appropriate in the situation described in the paper. How do the developers seek to minimize the drawbacks of minimalism? Think of other times (perhaps related to your project) when minimalist documentation approaches would seem applicable.
Recently, we have been discussing techniques for creating, conducting, analyzing, and writing up experiments. This Friday's activity asks you to read three papers on topics we have discussed in class: the Cadiz Sideshow paper, the van Dantzich Scope paper, and the Cutrell IM paper. In reading the papers, pay close attention to the experimental design, evaluation, and writeup. Were the choices of experiment types appropriate for the issues that the authors wanted to explore? Were the results presented appropriately? Did the discussion and conclusions follow from the results?
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.
Over the next few weeks, we will be discussing evaluation methods. For the Human Computer Interaction journal, Gray and Salzman wrote a paper examining the design of five experiments that compared usability evaluation methods. In Friday's class, discuss the claims made by the experimenters and address the issues that Gray and Salzman raised for them. Think about how their lessons apply to evaluation methods that you have and will use in your class project.
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.
This week in class, we've been talking about interaction techniques. One such technique that shows promise for certain tasks is the pie menu, a circular menu that displays information radially around a central point. Before Friday's class, search the Web for information on pie menus and select at least one professional paper and at least one interesting implementation to discuss. In class, we will talk about the pros and cons of pie menus, particularly with respect to the guidelines for interaction design (and information design) that we have learned.
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.
To prepare for this Friday's activity, browse the Web searching for pages that do and don't pass the "squint test". That is, when you look at the page while squinting, you should be able to understand the structure and general functionality of the page. After identifying several such pages, analyze the visual features, menu layouts, and graphical layouts of the page. Identify reasons why the pages you identified succeed or fail at their intended tasks.
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.
As we discussed in class, generally there is more than one way to design an information visualization, even for the same information. Differences in the information design can depend on a number of factors, including the target users and the goals in using the visualization. Consider these differences in reading two papers that discuss different ways to visualize hierarchies of information: John Stasko's SunBurst (also read the Technical Report) and Ben Shneiderman's TreeMaps (see Tech Report HCIL TR 91-06). In class, we will discuss the pros and cons of each visualization and consider situations when each is most appropriate.
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.
In class this week we talked about participatory design and some of the pitfalls that can occur when clients and other impacted people actively participate in product development. Before class on Friday, conside the role that your client seems to be taking in your project. Is it an active role or a passive one? Do you feel like you lead all of the meetings or does your client always lead them? In class, you will break into (non-project) groups and talk about the role of your client, touching upon ways that you can maintain control over your project yet still encourage your client to participate in helpful and productive ways.
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.
In class this week we talked about emerging interaction paradigms and how they relate to usability engineering. For this Friday's activity, read Vannevar Bush's essay "As We May Think" (available here and elsewhere on the Web), and consider the impacts that it had on science. Specifically, I want you to think about how elements in the essay foreshadowed advances in your field of study. In class, we will break into small groups, discuss the impact of the essay, and speculate on elements in the essay that may yet come to pass.
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.
In class this week we introduced the concept of scenario-based usability engineering. Consider (and possibly design or redesign) your own personal Web pages, and think about some scenarios that illustrate ways in which you want people to interact with it. You may have a specific target audiences for your pages, or you may be trying to appeal to many different people. What features of your pages support interactions of these groups? What tradeoffs did you make in creating these pages? How have your pages changed over time, and how do you anticipate that they will change in the future? Come to class prepared to discuss these points with your group.
Before class, please email the following to the TA, Iype Isac (iisac@vt.edu), so he can construct a class page:
<A HREF="http://www.vt.edu/your-site/">Your Name</A> <BR> youremail@vt.edu <BR> Your Department <BR> Interests: Your interests in 15 words or less <BR>
During or after class, select one member of your group to email to the class listserv a summary of your group's discussion.