Task: For each of the following three interfaces and for each one indicate what is good and what is bad about the interface. Provide reasons for your critiques.
 

Interface 1: The Class Web page

This page is actually very well organized. The good thing about it is that it is simple and not cluttered with too much information. Another good think is that is very similar to the page of the current course (Fall 1997) or I would rather say that the new page is similar to that one. Any way, I was already familiar with the new page and since it was like the old one I figured out very quickly where to find the important information that the page contains.

The bad thing about the page is the strange bullet like symbol used as links to the instructor’s notes and the midterm and final exam. I think that they are not very informative and the page will look better without them. These symbols are the only graphical elements in the otherwise text-filled page and distract your attention. It is true that the notes are important but they are not the most important thing in that page.

I also did not like the interface used to read (or see ) the notes, but this is actually the second interface (see below).
 

Interface 2: Audio-enhanced class notes

The idea of having both slides and audio is great. I cannot deny that. However, there are some problems with the interface that become obvious after you figure out what is the idea behind the page.

First of all, using frames might not be a good idea. The whole screen is updated if you click on any of the slides and for 4-5 seconds all you see is a blank screen. This is annoying for most of the time. The same is true for using the back or forward buttons of the browser.

Second , because there are many slides and not all of them can be displayed on the screen simultaneously, one has to scroll right in order to choose a slide that is not shown at the screen at the momentt. That is OK, but try clicking on the slide that is next to the one that you just chose. Surprise, you have to scroll right again. I assume that this problem can be corrected in the browser but until Netscape makes the correction it would be nice to have two links on the bottom of the page saying Next Slide and Previous Slide.

Third, the left-hand side of the screen looks very empty but occupies to much space on the screen. Since there are at most two or three links to RealAudio files and the Keywords section is empty we can do without a separate frame for that section.

Fourth, a small detail. On the very first slide there are two audio files that differ by 2 seconds only. I think that this is an error in the page; the second link that should point to a different audio file.
 

Interface 3: More audio-enhanced class notes

This page improves most of the deficiencies of the previous one (interface 2). I really like the idea of indicating the writing activity and also the fact that you can jump directly to an arbitrary place in the audio file. The interface is quite intuitive and easy to use. The notes on its use, however, are important and should remain on the top of the page.

I observed two problems with this page. First, the page is so big that even with the cache option of the browser turned on it still takes 15 seconds to redisplay the page after you click on a slide to view the enlarged image and then click on the Back button. Second, the quality of the slides is not great. They look very crude and it is not always easy to decipher the instructor’s handwriting. To some extent the larger slides can correct for this deficiency but not always. It might be a good idea to do some processing on the raw data taken from the electronic board before putting it on the page.