DECO2500/7250 – Sample questions – Set 1

1. What is the best description of a conceptual model?

a. A high level description of how a system is organised and how it operates

b. Interaction paradigms and interaction modes

c. A diagram showing the mental model of the user and the system

image

d. The problem space faced by the designer when gathering user requirements.

2. Which statement best reflects interaction design?

a. Interaction design is a new discipline

b. Interaction design is multidisciplinary

c. Interaction design combines the disciplines of software engineering and psychology

d. Interaction design is an application of common sense.

3. What are the elements of the Gulf of Execution?

a. Information processing elements involved in working out what the system did

b. Information processing elements involved in working out how to interact with the system

c. Forming intentions, specifying right action, selecting appropriate interface mechanism.

d. Processing the interface, interpreting interface information, and assessing information meaning.

4. How do recent approaches to “embodied interaction” differ from earlier accounts of the role of cognition in human­computer interaction?

a. Accounts of interaction focus on the cognitive activity of multiple individuals, not just one individual

b. Accounts of interaction support cognitive strategies such as annotating and cognitive tracing.

c. Accounts of interaction put greater emphasis on how emotions are embodied in people.

d. Accounts of interaction are more grounded in the ways people experience the world through physical interaction.

5. What was an important early drawback of the Clearboard system by Ishii et al. (1993).

a. It required people to move to a dedicated video conferencing facility at their workplace

b. As people moved closer to the board to talk with a remote colleague, the video system no longer picked them up

c. People found it uncomfortable to interact “looking down” at a colleague.

d. All of the above.

6. According to Quintanar (1982) how do users rate an interface/system that gives them personalised feedback?

a. They rate it as more honest

b. They rate it as less honest

c. They rate it as more likeable

d. They rate it as less likeable.

7. What is a principal limitation of multimedia as a means for presenting educational material, according to Rogers and Aldrich (1996)?

a. Learners may fixate on just one medium, such as text, and not process further information available in other media.

b. Learners may hop between media and only partially process the information in each one

c. Learners may feel that they are being patronised

d. Learners may need tools to help them keep track of the information with which they have and have not yet engaged.

8. Which of the following options best represents the core values of user­centred design, as originally articulated by Gould & Lewis (1985)?

a. Focusing on users and their tasks in the design process

b. Measuring progress towards usability goals throughout development

c. Developing and testing in several cycles

d. All of the above.

9. When conducting an investigation with human participants for research or commercial reasons, which provision(s) for consent must be made?

a. Approval of the research by a properly constituted ethics committee independent of the researchers

b. Participants informed they do not have to take part if they do not want to

c. Participants fully informed of their right to withdraw from the investigation without consequences to them

d. All of the above.

10. How did Buchenau and Suri (2000) use “experience prototyping” in a study described in Rogers et al. (2011)?

a. They built a game prototype that broke accessibility rules to make it frustrating for anyone to use

b. They built a “third age empathy suit” to help designers experience the loss of mobility and sensory perception in the elderly

c. They used contextual design meetings to get different people’s perspectives on the prototype

d. Their prototyping gave designers an idea of what wearing a chest­implanted automatic defibrillator might be like.

11. Which of the following is an important disadvantage of usability laboratory studies?

a. They emphasize controlled experimentation

b. They do not capture the context of people’s work or home activities

c. They do not exercise sufficient control to really understand users’ thinking

d. They do not directly involve users.

12. What did physiological monitoring show in the game evaluation study by Mandryk and Inkpen (2004)?

a. Participants’ skin response (sweat response) was higher when winning against a friend rather than against the computer

b. Participants’ skin response (sweat response) was lower when winning against a friend rather than against the computer

c. Participants’ heart rate was higher when winning against a friend rather than against the computer.

d. Participants’ heart rate was lower when winning against a friend rather than against the computer

13. According to many experts, how many users should be included in a usability test?

a. Seven plus or minus two (5­9 users)

b. Between 5 and 12, depending on needs

c. A large enough sample of users to perform statistical tests

d. At least 10 users.

14. What is the fundamental insight underlying the “cognitive walkthough” method of evaluation?

a. The idea that cognitive processes are the most important aspect of the user experience

b. The idea that users can sometimes be left out of evaluation

c. The idea that users learn by exploring an interface

d. The idea that experts need to work hand­in­hand with users to develop an optimal user experience.

DECO2500/7250 – Sample questions – Set 2

1. Which of the following is a better example of a user experience goal than a usability goal?

a. Effectiveness

b. Learnability

c. Helpfulness

d. Safety.

2. What is an “affordance” according to Norman (1999):

a. Property of an object that indicates to people how to use the object.

b. The return on investment of the user­centred design process.

c. The opportunity cost of not using user­centred design.

d. An instruction on an interface signalling how to use the interface.

3. According to Rogers et al. (2011) what was the primary reason for the success of the iPod?

a. Powerful functionality

b. User experience

c. Access to content

d. Conceptual design.

4. Which is the best definition of an interaction paradigm?

a. In broad terms, the kind of technical and software framework within which human­system interaction takes place (e.g., WIMP, mobile, tangible)

b. An idea from the world that is used in the interface to help the user understand what to do (e.g., click on tabs to change window contents, use shopping cart to store items to purchase)

c. What the human does to make inputs and receive information from

the system (e.g., click and drag an object, talk to an object, move self closer to an object, converse with an entity, etc)

d. The conceptual model used to guide the design of the interface.

5. Which is the best definition of an interaction mode?

a. In broad terms, the kind of technical and software framework within which human­system interaction takes place (e.g., WIMP, mobile, tangible)

b. An idea from the world that is used in the interface to help the user understand what to do (e.g., click on tabs to change window contents, use shopping cart to store items to purchase)

c. What the human does to make inputs and receive information from

the system (e.g., click and drag an object, talk to an object, move self closer to an object, converse with an entity, etc)

d. The conceptual model used to guide the design of the interface.

6. Which is the best definition of an interface metaphor?

a. In broad terms, the kind of technical and software framework within which human­system interaction takes place (e.g., WIMP, mobile, tangible)

b. An idea from the world that is used in the interface to help the user understand what to do (e.g., click on tabs to change window contents, use shopping cart to store items to purchase)

c. What the human does to make inputs and receive information from the system (e.g., click and drag an object, talk to an object, move self closer to an object, converse with an entity, etc)

d. The conceptual model used to guide the design of the interface.

7. What interaction paradigm did the Xerox Star use?

a. Conversation

b. Knowledge of a physical desktop

c. Embedded computing

d. Windows, Icons, Mouse, and Pointer (WIMP).

8. Which of the following is the most likely interface metaphor used by a smart phone calendar function?

a. Restaurant menu

b. Touchscreen interface

c. A paper diary

d. Mobile technology.

9. What is the principal interaction mode for a Wii system?

a. Gesture and body movements

b. Haptic (touch) interface

c. Exploring and browsing

d. Infrared position detection.

10. Which of the following is a design implication of our understanding of human attention?

a. Tactile feedback should make the same kinds of distinctions that a person would feel in the world (e.g. pushing vs. pulling)

b. Text should be legible and distinguishable from its background under different lighting conditions.

c. Avoid cluttering the interface with more information than is needed at the present moment for the user.

d. Sounds should be audible and distinguishable.

11. Why is Miller’s (1956) theory that our working memory can hold 7 +/­ 2 items of information not a useful design guideline for number of menu items, tool bar icons, etc?

a. We can scan such items: we don’t need to remember them

b. People can actually hold much less than 7 +/­ 2 items in memory

c. People can actually hold much more than 7 +/­ 2 items in memory

d. This was not Miller’s theory – it was Norman’s theory.

12. What issue do Rogers et al. (2011) raise about context­aware reminding systems such as comMotion (Marmasse & Schmandt, 2000)?

a. Context is hard to define

b. The kind of reminding such systems provide is probably more useful to those with memory problems than to those with normal memory

c. Such systems are cumbersome to carry and may distract the user from other tasks that they are doing.

d. The comMotion system does not have a good mental model of the user.

13. What was the feature of the Hydra system that distinguished it from other telepresence/teleconferencing systems?

a. It embedded a robot in the remote location to interact with remote colleagues in different locations.

b. It created a video wall that allowed people in two remotely located common rooms to interact with each other informally.

c. It used the principle of “translucence” to make the participants and their activities more visible to all participants.

d. The spatial arrangement of Hydra units created a spatial layout of face images and speech sounds that could happen in a physical environment.

14. What is affective computing? Select the best answer.

a. Computing that produces interfaces than engage human emotions.

b. Computing that produces interfaces in an efficient manner.

c. Interfaces that apologize to their users

d. Interfaces that look and behave like people.

15. The character Rea is an example of what?

a. A real­estate agent

b. A zoomorphic interface

c. A persuasive technology

d. An embodied agent.

16. Based on informal tests, what was the most effective way in which the WaterBot system change domestic water usage?

a. By coloring the water when usage was high

b. By providing a colored graph that indicated a person’s water use

c. By sounding chimes when water usage was high

d. None of the above.

17. Which is the best example of triangulation in data gathering?

a. Collecting information about designer’s model, user’s mental model, and system image.

b. Using different theories with which to interpret data.

c. Using multiple researchers in a user­centred evaluation.

d. Collecting data from users in different ways with different methods.

18. What is a disadvantage of unstructured interviews for gathering

information about users’ tasks?

a. Information about how tasks are actually performed, rather than ideally performed, may be gathered.

b. Answers to all potentially relevant questions may not be gathered.

c. The data collected are rich and complex.

d. Different interviewees may give different answers to the questions.

19. What is a disadvantage of using focus groups to elicit user requirements?

a. Users may not be able to articulate what their requirements are.

b. Diverse or sensitive issues may be raised.

c. People don’t necessarily respond the same way in a test as they would do in real life.

d. Differences of opinion may emerge that confuse the requirements gathering process.

20. A question format that collects users’ opinions on a verbal scale (eg.,

strongly disagree to strongly agree) is called what?

a. A psychometric scale

b. A Likert scale

c. A questionnaire

d. An open­response questionnaire item.

21. What is a “participant observer”

a. An observer who partly participates in the activity they are observing.

b. A participant who observes the activity they are participating in.

c. An observer who watches participants.

d. A participant who watches observers.

22. Which set of properties best characterises an “ethnographic” study?

a. Participant observation, cultural engagement, collection of diverse forms of evidence and data

b. Participant observation, scientific objectivity, removal of cultural bias

c. “Anthropological strangeness”, collection of audiovisual data.

d. Use of the model human processor to analyse findings.

23. What was an important feature of the process by which the Mobiphos photograph sharing application (Patel et al., 2009) was evaluated?

a. Agile programming methods were interlaces with iterative user testing.

b. Four different data gathering techniques were used.

c. Participatory design was used.

d. Vibrations indicated the arrival of new photos in the application.

24. In the following data set, which number is the mode? 4 5 5 5 6 7 8 8

a. 5

b. 5.5

c. 6

d. None of the above.

25. What is an affinity diagram?

a. A diagram showing the degree of connection between people in social networks

b. A diagram used to show people’s cultural affinities or sense of belonging to groups.

c. A diagram that organises individual ideas and insights into a hierarchy showing themes.

d. A variant of a tag cloud that is generated from think­aloud protocols.

26. Select the best way of analysing qualitative user comments collected during a user test.

a. Classify the comments into categories and count number of comments in each category.

b. Find the average and the standard deviation of the data and report it in the body of the report.

c. Use a scatterplot to graph users on the x axis and comments on the y axis.

d. Look for critical incidents to report.

27. What are web analytics?

a. Online methods for performing usability tests through the cloud.

b. Web­based methods for performing analysis of video records and electronic logs of user interaction

c. Web­based methods for performing statistical analysis of data, using tools such as SPSS.

d. Online methods for analysing and visualising patterns of visiting a website, viewing pages, etc..

28. How would a researcher perform an analysis of user data from the perspective of Activity Theory?

a. Classify user comments according to the tool, subject, object, community, rules, division of labor, and outcome expressed.

b. Classify user comments according to the representational state or medium the user is handling at each point in time.

c. Analyse data in successive passes, including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.

d. Try to determine the mental model of the user on the basis of the activity they are carrying out.

29. Which of the following is not one of Saffer’s (2010) four approaches to

interaction design?

a. User­centred design

b. Systems design

c. Genius design

d. Conceptual design.

30. Should end­users always have a high degree of participation in software development?

a. Yes: the fundamental principle of interaction design is early involvement of end­users, which should be universally applied.

b. Not always: different levels of participant are warranted for different kinds of projects and different project stages.

c. Never: end­users do not know how to articulate their own requirements and do not necessarily have enough technical expertise

d. None of the above.

31. What is the Volere shell?

a. An operating system similar to Unix.

b. A template for specifying system requirements.

c. A framework for defining personas and scenarios

d. A template for creating cultural probe packages.

32. What is Contextual Inquiry?

a. A component of Contextual Design.

b. A way of asking about user context for awareness applications.

c. Participant observation in relevant use contexts

d. A component of Contextual Embodiment Theory.

33. “An informal narrative description of human activities or tasks in a story that allows exploration and discussion of contexts, needs, and requirements”. This best describes which of the following?

a. Use case

b. Essential use case

c. Storyboard

d. Scenario.

34. Which of the following is a problem with low­level prototyping?

a. Testers tend to comment on superficial aspects and not content.

b. They take too long to build.

c. User expectations can be set too high.

d. None of the above.

35. What is the most important property that a prototype should have?

a. It should support a wide range of user tests.

b. It should look like the final product.

c. It should allow the key design concepts to be tested with users.

d. It should be easy to throw away.

36. Where would a card­based prototype best fit in the design process?

a. After conceptual design, before scenario design

b. After scenario design, before storyboarding.

c. After storyboarding, before low­level prototyping.

d. After low­level prototyping, before high­level prototyping.

37. What kind of activity does the D.E.C.I.D.E. acronym support?

a. Planning and conducting an evaluation and analysing the data.

b. Conducting user tests.

c. Deciding what kind of prototype to use for user tests.

d. Deciding whether to perform empirical or analytical evaluations.

38. You are running a user test session and your participant wants to leave half way through the session. What do you do?

a. Ask them to stay until the end as planned, so you can collect your

data.

b. After ensuring they do not need medical help, let them leave, with your thanks.

c. Offer them an incentive payment to encourage them to finish the session.

d. Refuse to let them leave until they have finished the session.

39. Which professional groups are most appropriately involved in preparation and performance of the classic kind of cognitive walkthrough?

a. End users and designers

b. Designers and usability experts

c. Usability experts and marketing personnel

d. Designers and marketing personnel.

40. How was the GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, Selection rules) used in Project Ernestine (Gray et al., 1993)?

a. GOMS allowed researchers to predict how long it would take telephone operators to use a new computer interface.

b. GOMS predicted the errors that telephone operators would make before the operators used the new software.

c. GOMS predicted the increase in mental workload experienced by the telephone operators

d. Interface metaphors.