SWE 432: Design and Implementation of Software for the Web
Assignment — Fall 2014
This course is part of the ACS Software Engineering
and the minor in Software Engineering programs.
Syllabus Schedule
  

SWE 432 Assignment 2
Evaluation : GMU Library System
Due 09/09

Former SWE 205 students must do the alternate assignment.


For this assignment you should work with one partner. If you work with a partner, submit the same report and put both names on the report. Post your assignment on your website before class starts on the due date (both team members must submit the assignment on their websites).

You will conduct a usability evaluation for GMU's library system at http://library.gmu.edu/. Use the evaluation checklist. You need to evaluate the user interface (focus on the interface, not the backend) in terms of the five measurable criteria (Shneiderman's criteria) that were discussed in class (time to learn, speed of UI performance, rate of user errors, retention of skills, and subjective satisfaction). You should

For the ratings, you must use the following scale of importance: low, moderate, high, very high. For example, if you think the rate of user errors is crucial to the success of the interface, then your rating for Errors should be very high. Your priority ranking and your measurable goals should be consistent with each other, and your evaluation will in large part be based on whether the user interface achieves its goals.

Submit a brief report in four parts:

  1. describe the task you used the interface for
  2. complete the evaluation checklist
  3. provide a short narrative justifying your priority ranking and evaluation
  4. a summary statement about the usability (what have your learn, what should have been done?)
Your reports should be be 2 - 3 pages in length; please make them direct, to the point, and always justify your assessment.

This assignment is supposed to be fun and I expect it to take about 1 to 2 hours to evaluate and write up the report.

Submit your report by making a link to it on your website. If you work with a partner, put both of your names on the report. Both team members must submit a link on their websites.

You can put the report up as an HTML file or formatted as PDF. No word processor files. No handwriting. If you choose to use a word processor, you can save it to a file as PDF. If you use MS Word, PDF files can be created if you have Adobe Writer and several free tools (for example CutePDF). Your file should have the name yourfirstname-initial followed by yourlastname-assignment2 (for instance, UPraphamontripong-assignment2.html or UPraphamontripong-assignment2.pdf).

Making your report available to me is your responsibility; if I cannot access your file then you will not get credit. Be sure to test access to your file before the due date.

Grading Rubric

The grading for this assignment will be as follows:
[Total: 20 points]


© Based on documents by Dr. Jeff Offutt (the original author) and Dr. Kinga Dobolyi, use with permission of the author. This document is made available for use by GMU students of SWE 432. Copying, distribution or other use of this document without express permission of the author is forbidden. You may create links to pages in this web site, but may not copy all or part of the text without permission of the original author.