Human Computer Interaction (AL-804 (D)) - Important Questions

Explain modeling of system understanding. Describe different models used to represent a user's knowledge of a system (for example, the designer's model, the user's model, and the system image) and give examples of how these models influence interface design.

Define mental models and metaphors in Human–Computer Interaction. Explain how metaphors support the formation of mental models and illustrate with at least two interface design examples.

What are design prototypes and what role do they play in user-centered design? Compare low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes, listing advantages, disadvantages, and situations where each is appropriate.

Describe the steps for planning and conducting a controlled experiment in HCI. Explain how to select independent and dependent variables, choose participants, control confounds, and mitigate threats to validity.

Explain the cognitive walkthrough method. Describe its procedure, the kinds of problems it is best suited to detect, its main advantages and limitations, and how it differs from heuristic evaluation.

How would you evaluate an interface specifically from the perspective of a novice learner? Outline the methods, tasks, measures, and criteria you would use to assess learnability.

Design a controlled experiment to compare two interface layouts for a simple data-entry task. Specify the hypothesis, independent and dependent variables, participant selection and sample size considerations, experimental design (between-subjects or within-subjects) and the statistical test(s) you would use to analyse the results.

Discuss how prototypes are used in iterative evaluation. Explain the difference between formative and summative evaluations and how prototypes support each type.

Compare and contrast mental models and conceptual (design) models. Explain the consequences of mismatches between designers' models and users' mental models and propose strategies to reduce such mismatches during design and evaluation.

Explain how to perform a cognitive walkthrough focused on novice users. Provide a step-by-step example of conducting a walkthrough on a common interface (for example, an ATM or a website sign-up flow), indicating the tasks, success criteria, and example observations.

List and explain common objective and subjective measures used in controlled experiments in HCI (for example, task time, error rate, success rate, and user satisfaction). For each measure describe appropriate data-collection methods and when that measure is most informative.