Human-Computer Interaction

CS 6750 Fall 1999

Homework Assignment 3: Cognitive Walkthrough Exercise


Due Friday, November 5 at beginning of class

The purpose of this assignment is to get you to practice performing a cognitive walkthrough with two web interfaces.  Like many web applications, the *learnability* of these interfaces is key to effective use.

The interaction task is to find (but not book) a roundtrip flight between Atlanta, GA and Minneapolis / St. Paul leaving near 5pm December 2nd and returning around 2pm December 7th for one person traveling coach class.

The starting point for the two web sites are:
http://www.deltaairlines.com
http://travel.yahoo.com

For this homework you are the analyst.  You need to:

  1. Describe your user population, your assumptions about what knowledge they bring the task of on-line travel booking, and the specific input (starting parameters) that they will use to begin the task.
  2. Define the specific action sequence that must be performed to complete the above interaction task for both interfaces.
  3. For each interface, you must construct a believability story for every step in the action sequence, providing plausible answers to each of the four questions discussed in the book and in the lecture on October 29.
  4. Record and organize your observations.
  5. Provide an overall assessment of the learnability of the web interfaces and recommendations for improvement.

Your report should be printed out and handed in at the beginning of class.  I will later ask for good examples to be added to the CoWeb for extra credit.

Here is a suggested outline for your report. 

User descriptions

Describe the user population that you want to simulate with this analysis, the knowledge they bring to this task and the initial input that they will use to start the task (e.g. Atlanta to Minneapolis, December 2nd ...)
 

Task Description

Describe the task as a series of action sequences that needs to be performed.  A simple HTA may be useful.

  Delta Airlines
  Yahoo Travel

Observation Record

Record your observations for the 4 questions for each of the action sequences.  Also record the final output (i.e. the chosen flight).

  Delta Airlines
  Yahoo Travel
 

Analysis and Recommendations

Organize and summarize your analysis based on the cognitive
walkthrough.  Provide recommendations to improve the learnability of
the two interfaces.

  Delta Airlines
  Yahoo Travel
 

Last modified: Thu Sep 2 21:56:02 EDT 1999

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