For this homework you may work with one partner. If you work with a partner, submit the same report and put both names on the report.
The next homework assignment will be to conduct a small usability evaluation. You need to evaluate the user interface in terms of the five measurable criteria that were discussed in class (time to learn, speed of UI performance, rate of user errors, retention of skills, and subjective satisfaction). Use these in three ways: (1) rank them in priority on a scale of 1 to 5, (2) rate each criterion in terms of what you think the user interface's goals should be, and (3) rate each criterion in terms of what you think the user interface actually achieves. 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.
You should evaluate GMU's information system at http://patriotweb.gmu.edu.
You should submit a brief report that describes the task you used the interface for, then present the rankings and criteria goals. Each ranking should be justified in terms of how the actual user interface performed vs. what a good interface would require. For example, you might justify saying that the speed of the interface was poor by discussing the number of actual vs. required UI interactions, with attention to which ones that were especially slow, e.g. mouse clicks. Then there should be a short narrative explaining your use of the UI, and finally a summary statement about the usability. I expect your reports to be 2 or 3 pages in length; please make them direct and to the point.
This homework 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 class web page. If you work with a partner, submit links from both of your web pages. This should be the URL that you gave us in the information form! Very important: if you are going to use a different URL, submit an update to the information form.
You can put the report up as HTML, plain text, or PDF. NO FORMATTED OR WORD PROCESSOR FILES! If you choose to use a word processor, you can save it to a file as PDF or HTML.
Making your report available to me and the TA is your responsibility; if we cannot access your file then you will not get credit. Be sure to test access to your file before the due date.