JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF

AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

OSCAR MUNIU MWANGI
BIT-035-0070/2013
HUMAN COMPUTER INTERFACE
ASSESSMENT 1

BIT 2305: HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION QUESTIONS

1. Discuss, with reference to attention mechanisms and Fitts law, the size and
screen position you would likely choose for the most frequently used button
in an interface. (An understanding of human capabilities in interacting with
technology is required)
I.
II.

Fittss Rule Number 1: Create Larger Targets-The likely most prominent statement
derived from Fittss Law is that the larger a target, the faster it is to acquire.
Fittss Rule Number 2: Minimize Cursor Movement-A second statement one can
deduce from Fittss Law is that the closer a target, the faster it is to acquire.

III.

Fittss Rule Number 3: Avoid Muscular Tension-The goal of Fittss index of

performance (PDF) is to quantify the information capacity of the human motor system. In
other words: it aims to rank input methods according to the amount of physical effort they
require to execute a certain command.

IV.

Fittss Rule Number 4: Exploit the Prime Pixels-The concept of prime pixels states that
some pixels are faster to acquire than others. Corners and edges of the screen are
especially fast to access. However, the fastest-to-acquire pixel in any situation is simply
the pixel at the current cursor position, which has lead to the introduction of the rightclick context menu into humancomputer interaction.

2. You are designing the interface for an automated airline booking system.
List some general principles for HCI that are relevant to this situation, with
a brief indication of how they would apply.
Learnability the ease with which new users can begin effective interaction and achieve
maximal performance (e.g. familiarity, generalizability, predictability)
Flexibility the multiplicity of ways the user and system exchange information (e.g.
customisability, substitutability, user control)
Robustness the level of support provided to the user in determining successful achievement
and assessment of goal-directed behaviour (e.g. observability, recoverability)
3. How would you evaluate whether a small change in web-page layout is
likely to improve sales of a particular item? Specify both the data
collection method and how you would assess if any difference was just
due to chance, or other factors.
(Look at user
interface evaluation)
4. Discuss the view that minimalist manuals are just the application of user
centered design to documentation rather than to software.
One view of minimal manuals is that you just apply the prototyping cycle to a manual and
keep changing the design until it best supports what users want the manual for. The
principles were arrived at on the basis of essentially that kind of research, and it also needs
to be applied in developing any particular manual
5. You have been asked to program a software agent that hotel patrons
can phone to order burgers:
Provide a scenario describing an interaction with the system
Provide a hierachical task analysis of the burger ordering process

(An understanding of Task Analysis in HCI is required)