Reading

Exercises

1. The State of Maryland is developing a web-voting interface. For selecting the candidates, one design (RB) is a set of radio buttons and another is (CB) a combo-box (drops down when selecting the scroll arrow icon), both using standard fonts at 10-point size.
   Compare these two designs when there are 4 candidates and predict the relative speed of performance and error rates. Support your choice by a thoughtful argument.
2. Give two reasons why expert reviews are useful. Also give two limitations of expert reviews.
3. One argument against the current interface design of a popular word processor is that it has all the functional menu items appearing together which cause the interface to be too complex. This complexity results in a confusing and frustrating experience for novice users. An alternative design is to provide different levels of functional complexity, so users can choose the level that is suitable for them, then advance to higher level as they get familiar with the tool, thus feel more comfortable and learn more efficiently. You are asked to conduct usability testing to compare these two designs.
   • Which type of usability testing should be used for this situation? Explain why.
   • List some general principles of subject selection in usability testing. How should you select subjects for this case?
   • List and briefly describe the steps in the usability testing you would conduct.