Final Exam Topics

You should be familiar with the following topics:

Basics

• Visibility, Affordance
• Characteristics of the user-centered development methodology
• Hierarchical Memory model; mental model
• User-centered design cycle: needs analysis, user/task analysis, function analysis, function/task allocation, requirements analysis, setting usability goals, design, prototyping, evaluation
• Four levels of application familiarity
• Setting usability measures: quantitative qualitative

User testing with a paper prototype

• Formative vs. summative evaluation
• Definition of high, low fidelity
• Problems with high fidelity
• Advantages of paper
• Selecting users
• Roles, responsibilities in a usability test
• Demeanor during test
• Purpose of pretest questionnaire, test scenarios
• Informed Consent

Content organization

• Benefits of content organization
• Locating and Identifying content
• Metaphors
• Card sorting
• Organizational schemes: definition, types, advantages, disadvantages
• Organizational structure: definition, types, purpose
• Controlled vocabularies, thesauri

Visual organization

• Proximity, Alignment, Repetition, Contrast. Be able to recognize them and use them.
• Color: Color perception. Color Systems. Browser-safe colors. Design rules for using color. Indexed vs. true color. Color blindness. Cultural differences.

Navigation

• Qualities of good navigation. Be able to recognize examples and to give examples.
• Techniques for building good navigation
• Types of navigation: hierarchical, global, local, ad hoc
• Text/Graphics for navigation bars

Multimedia

• Difference between streaming, nonstreaming formats
• Design tips for video
• Accessibility to video
• Uses for animation
• 3D formats for web
  

Globalization

• Internationalization vs localization
• Translating text
• Translating Non Text items
• Special considerations in user testing

Accessibility

• Major types of barriers to Web access
• Assistive technologies
• Web site considerations

Trust

• Factors that affect trust
• Interactions that promote trust
• Web site considerations