SWE 632 - Midterm Review - Fall 2012

The midterm will cover all the material presented in class, homework and readings. The concepts below are guidelines, but the exam will cover everything. The key is to UNDERSTAND concepts.. not just memorize answers to each of these questions.

This may be updated frequently. Please hit refresh. Last updated: Oct 12, 2012 (there will be no more updates before the exam)

Assessments
    - define assessment, assertion and grounding.
    - Is the following assessment supported by the following assertions? why or why not?
    - Is the assessment well grounded?
    - Given the following levels of competence, what level is a justified by these assertions? why?
    - Describe each of Schneiderman's 5 criteria
    - Rate a given interface using the criteria, and explain your rating

Mental Models
    - Define and give examples of mental model, representation model and implementation.
    - Why is it important for the representation model to resemble the mental model?
    - What problems may occur by following a metaphor that is based on a physical model?
   
Golden Rules
    - Feedback is more than error messages. What are some other types of feedback?
    - How do you ensure users can find shortcuts?
    - What is "hesitation" and why/when do I use it?
    - Give some examples of what UI can minimize user inputs.
    - What does "make data entry similar to data display" mean?
    - Given the following dialogue, explain all the problems with it.

Users
    - Describe outside-in design
    - Explain the three types of knowledge we discussed (app-specific syntax, task semantic and computer semantic)
    - Provide examples of the three types (or categorize example I give you)
    - Given a user's level, what UI constructs are important for them?
    - What are perpetual intermediates?
    - For what types of applications is it true that most users will be perpetual intermediates?
    - Knowing the users' goals is important. Why?
    - Describe a few different ways to get information about users? What types of things do you want to know?
    - Define ethnographic field study
    - Do we need different UIs for different users? Why?

Personas
    - What is a persona and how does it differ from a real user?
    - What does it capture? Why use them instead of real users?
    - Define primary persona, served persona, and negative persona
    -

Menus
    - Why do users use menus?
    - What do frequent users use instead of menus?
    - When would frequent users use menus?
    - Describe the different types of dialogues and some pros/cons of each type
    - Given a type of menu, describe it, explain when it's appropriate, pros/cons of the type
    - Build a <<Insert any type of menu>> menu for a given scenario
    - What are some design considerations when creating menus?
    - What are some different orderings of menu items?
    - Explain all the problems with this menu (be specific!)
    - Explain all the problems with this form (be specific!)
    - How can designers make it easier to speed through menus?


Error Messages
    - What are the primary guidelines when creating error messages?
    - Given an error message, explain what is wrong and how to fix it
    - Describe some things designers do to avoid errors
    - What are the benefits of good error message? Why?

Excise
    - What is an excise versus revenue task? Give some examples. If I give you tasks, explain which are excise and why.
    - Explain why the essential problems in software aren't going to be "solved" or "automated completely"
    - How do you balance excise tasks which are different for beginners and experts
    - Navigation: why is it always excise (except in video games)?
    - How do signposts and overviews help navigation?
    - Where are places an interface can be "inflected" towards the most common items? Why does that help?

Flow
    - Define and describe "flow"
    - Give examples of things that break flow or ways to keep users in flow?
    - Explain the concept of "the interface should be invisible".

Don't Make Me Think (web usability)
    - Explain the concept of "don't make me think"?
    - Why do people on the web not make optimal choices?
    - Shorten your pages (less is more).. what are some specific ways this helps?
    - Describe the trunk test
    - How do we decide if we should use a particular UI feature on a site?