SWE 205 In-Class Exercise
Head vs. World Revisited: Where is Information?

Names:

This is an in-class group exercise. Do this with everyone in your group.

Introduction: In an earlier exercise, we visited the notion that some information lives in your head, and some in the world. Today, we focus on how that relates to gulfs of execution and evaluation.

Information that is in your head can be leveraged to reduce gulfs of execution and evaluation; use of this type of information in an interface is very fast. If an interface needs information that is typically in the world, the interface should try to make accessing that information as easy as possible.

It's usually a problem when an interface assumes something is in your head, but it's really in the world. A good example is a password for a rarely-used site. Where is that password? Probably in a note somewhere. How do good browser interfaces help with this? They provide an automated note!

  1. Pick an interface, identify a use case, and determine where all the information for that use case resides. Note whether any of the information is in the "wrong" place.
  2. Explain what role this information plays in the relevant gulf (execution or evaluation).

We'll discuss in the last 15 minutes of class.