CIS 524 All Discussion Question

CIS 524 Discussion Question CIS 524 Week 1 DQ 1: Creating an Interface Imagine you are managing a design project that will create an interface for automobile mechanics. The interface would be used by the mechanics to look up various fixes and parts for any number of makes or models of automobiles that may come through their garage. Decide what usability measures would be most motivating when designing this interface and describe the unique challenges you would have to plan for when designing an interface for an automotive repair shop. Use supporting evidence to support your response. Physical, cognitive, perceptual, personality, and cultural differences introduce challenges when designing universally usable products. Choose one area from the list above and describe why it is the biggest challenge to overcome when creating universally usable designs. Support your response. CIS 524 Week 1 DQ 2: Goal Setting Early computers were only usable by experts with strong technical knowledge. Examine how interactive systems have changed throughout the years to accommodate average users and describe two advantages and two disadvantages associated with these changes. From the e-Activity, examine the two articles you selected on universal usability and discuss one topic of interest that was addressed. CIS 524 Week 2 DQ 1: Interface Design Guidelines Imagine you are leading a team of designers for a new software product. During the kickoff meeting, the team starts to discuss design guidelines. About half of the team complains that guidelines can be too specific, incomplete, hard to apply, and sometimes wrong. The other half feels that building on experience from design leaders contributes to steady improvements. Take a stance on this debate and support your position. Then discuss how you would solve this conflict to get your meeting back on track. Of the eight principles of design, called “Golden Rules” (strive for consistency, cater to universal usability, offer informative feedback, design dialogues to yield closure, prevent errors, permit easy reversal of actions, support internal locus of control, and reduce short-term memory load) choose the one that is most important and create an argument supporting your choice. Use specific examples to support your argument. CIS 524 Week 2 DQ 2: HCI Theories Imagine you are the manager of a medium-sized IT department. While walking through the hall one day, you overhear a senior-level software developer telling a newly hired developer to focus on improving his coding skills rather than learning about theories related to human-computer interaction. Take a position on whether you agree or disagree with the senior software developer. Support your decision. From the e-Activity, discuss the idea that all applications have to be visually consistent. Argue whether you agree or disagree with the idea and why. CIS 524 Week 3 DQ 1: Electronic Ballots One criticism of electronic ballots for elections is that while intuitive for younger voters who are familiar with using a mouse to point and click, elderly voters and motor-impaired users will have difficulty controlling a mouse. Discuss how you would correct this issue so that every demographic would have an equal opportunity to vote. Support your answer. Imagine you have just finished interviewing a recent college graduate for a design position within your company. At the end of the interview, the college graduate remarks that design would be much easier if people conformed to the design, rather than the design having to be accessible to diverse populations. Respond to this comment, addressing the legal, societal, and ethical issues that designers face in regard to human-computer interaction. CIS 524 Week 3 DQ 2: Interface Design Models Evaluate interface design models and describe design issues across human-computer interaction environments associated with these models. Support your response. Building an interface can be broken down into the phases of design and development. Analyze the activities that take place in both phases, and explain why certain activities should be included in design but not in development. CIS 524 Week 4 DQ 1: Direct Manipulation and Virtual Environments Your software development company has been contracted to build a tool that will manage user accounts and rights in an Active Directory environment. One of your developers tells you that he wants the tool to make use of direct manipulation. A second developer argues that a command line structure would be a better and more secure approach. Take a stand on this argument, providing at least three positives of each approach, and then make a decision for this project and support it. Describe virtual and augmented reality. Suggest a way in which this technology could be used in the future , either to improve a current process / procedure or create a new process / procedure. Provide an example of your suggested use of the technology. CIS 524 Week 5 DQ 1: Command and Natural Language The president of your company approached you with his iPhone in one hand and his iPad in the other. He has just purchased the iPhone 4S and is fascinated with Siri, the voice recognition software. He then pulls up an app your team developed for the company a few months ago and tells you that he wants it to work with voice commands just like Siri. When you pass this information on to your team, the news is met with groans and angry expressions. One of your developers tells you that it would be way too complicated to add voice recognition into the app and that you should have said no. Suggest three techniques to overcome the challenges of implementing natural language into interface designs. Sally, a young developer, requests a meeting with you to discuss a project. Sally tells you that she wants to develop a new application in a computer language she has developed, hoping to use the project as proof of concept for her newly developed language. Your firm encourages technological development and advancement and has allowed similar developments to happen in the past. Discuss with Sally what is required to be considered an effective computer language. Suggest three characteristics that make up an effective computer language. Support your response with evidence from the textbook or an article you found. CIS 524 Week 10 DQ 1: Characterizing Data Types Justify characterizing data types according to task taxonomy. Support your response. Assess the value to an interface designer, of being familiar with the seven basic tasks and create an argument for which three of the seven basic tasks are the most important to incorporate in a design. CIS 524 Week 5 DQ 2: Developing Commands You have just finished reviewing a design project your team has submitted to you and noticed that the team members used a great deal of command abbreviations. Explain to your team the value of using abbreviations for commands and give them at least two advantages and disadvantages associated with using abbreviations. Support your answer. From the e-Activity, Amore’s and Quesada’s article discusses the challenges of incorporating Natural Command Language Dialogs (NCLDs) into a phone system. One challenge pertains to sources of conflict in NCLDs. Discuss potential sources of conflict with an interface that you frequently use and devise a solution for preventing the conflicts. CIS 524 Week 6 DQ 1: Interaction Devices Touch screens are becoming extremely popular input devices for phones and tablets. Assess the value of touch screen devices related to human-computer interaction systems. Identify at least two advantages and two disadvantages of having touch screen devices in the workplace. Support your response by citing a quality resource. Chapter 8 currently has the following subsections, keyboards and keypads, pointing devices, and speech and auditory interfaces. Predict what the subsections may be if this book were written 10 years from now. Justify your predictions. CIS 524 Week 6 DQ 2: Collaboration and Social Media While planning for a new project, a young developer mentions that she used Facebook as a collaborative group space for developing her senior project. She tells you that it was the ideal solution since it was free and all of her group members were friends with her. Further, she tells you that your company should do the same thing. Explain whether or not you think that Facebook would be a proper venue for your developers to collaborate. Give at least three reasons for your answer. Imagine you were going to be teaching this class next semester and you were given the choice to teach it asynchronously distributed interface, synchronously distributed interface, or face-to-face. Choose one of these techniques to teach the class and describe why you chose the presentation style you did. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages associated with the style you chose. CIS 524 Week 7 DQ 1: Quality of Service Your design team presents a project to you, in which most inputs seem to have about a 1.5-second delay before a response. The lead designer has decided this response is acceptable. Analyze response-time models and decide if the response time in the presented project is acceptable. Explain why it is or is not. Evaluate the importance quality of service has to designers. Choose two areas discussed in the textbook you would focus your attention to ensure quality of service for a team of designers that you were managing. Justify your choices. CIS 524 Week 7 DQ 2: Balancing Function and Fashion Error messages are a key part of an overall interface design strategy of guidance for the user. Discuss strategies to ensure integrated, coordinated error messages that are consistent across an application. Choose the one topic covered in Chapter 11 (error messages, non-anthropomorphic design, display design, window design, and color) that creates the biggest challenge to achieving balance between function and fashion. Support your response. CIS 524 Week 8 DQ 1: System Documentation Ray and Jason have just finished developing the documentation for a system your team recently completed. Ray insists that the documentation should be printed in booklet format and included with the system. Jason insists that paper manuals are outdated and that the documentation should only be distributed electronically via DVD. Compare and contrast the use of online documentation and paper documentation. Then, make a decision about what documentation you will provide with your system and explain it to Ray and Jason. Debate whether or not to give credit to authors and designers of training manuals. Support your argument. CIS 524 Week 8 DQ 2: Online Communities Evaluate online tutorials and online communities in regard to helping users. Create an argument for the approach you find to be the most effective and explain why. From the e-Activity, evaluate at least two sites or tools for developing end user documentation. Discuss the abilities the sites or tools provide and how the sites or tools aid in the creation of user documentation. Make a suggestion to improve the site or tool. CIS 524 Week 9 DQ 1: Searching Textual Documents Your company has been hired to design a product that will provide searches of textual documents and database querying. Your design team has not developed a product like this before. Examine the challenges associated with searching in textual documents and database querying. Describe how the five-stage search framework shared in Chapter 13 could be used to overcome those challenges. Assess current multimedia document search techniques and suggest three techniques to improve multimedia search experiences. Explain why you chose to recommend each of the techniques you suggested. CIS 524 Week 9 DQ 2: Advanced Filtering Describe the most effective advanced filtering and search interface. Argue why the interface you chose is more effective than others, and describe who benefits most from the interface you are describing. From the e-Activity, Google has been the dominant market leader for search engines for the past several years, despite a fairly basic interface and competition from competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo. Discuss reasons why Google has been able to maintain such a high market share. Also, suggest some ideas for a search engine that would be able to take market share away from Google. CIS 524 Week 10 DQ 2: Information Visualization Despite increases in computing power and network bandwidth, many user interfaces are still largely text oriented, with a few icons and illustrations. Discuss at least three reasons why text-oriented interfaces are still the most common. From the e-Activity, identify the tool you would be most likely to use in a design project and explain why you selected it. CIS 524 Week 11 DQ 1: Course Conclusion You have just completed 10 weeks of a computer and interaction design course. Imagine you have been asked to create a one-day training course highlighting the important elements of what you have just learned in the past 10 weeks. Create a hierarchy of five (no more or no less) of the most important topics that you feel need to be addressed in this one-day course that best fits the course title of “Computer Interaction and Design: The Essentials Presented in One Day.” Give a detailed rationale for each of the five topics. CIS 524 Week 11 DQ 2: Course Importance Using 140 characters or less (the length of a Tweet), summarize the importance of this class to someone unfamiliar with the concepts. Discuss how you can apply the learning outcomes of this course to your professional and personal life.