Winter 2008
Changes in
red.
Your goal in this
assignment is to critique one or more commercially available software
applications, computing devices,
or interfaces on "learnability", "flexibility", and
"robustness". These
three terms are used in Dix et al.'s textbook as three main categories of
"principles to support usability" (see section 7.2, beginning on page
260). For each of these
categories, there is a further set of “principles affecting [category]” (see
Tables 7-1, 7-2, and 7-3).
Your critique should begin
with a summary of the principles, crafted in your own words but with reference
to Dix et al.'s ideas. Following
this, provide six (6) detailed examples from the chosen application(s),
device(s), or interface(s), two for each principle. For each two, one should demonstrate how a principle is
correctly applied, and one should demonstrate how a principle is incorrectly
applied. Use screen snaps or other
visual aides to support your examples. Your examples may be taken from
different applications. It might
be useful to organize your examples in a table or tables, but this is for you
to decide.
Format. Format your submission according to the "CHI Conference
Publications Format". Click here to download a template in MS Word format.
Submission. Submit your review as a PDF or DOC file in Prism using the
command 'submit 4441 a2 a2.pdf'.
It is recommended to submit a .doc file as well, to avoid possible
problems with your pdf submission.