Homework 1

Due Jan. 15 at 11:55pm

Important note: The main point of the following tasks is to describe what exactly you did and what you experienced when navigating the website of  Task 1, and when working with the technical system you chose in Task 2. In cases of unfulfilled expectations, you should additionally explain what you intended to achieve, why you decided to perform a specific action to achieve this aim, and in what respect that action did not deliver what you expected.

Task 1. Visit the website of Pope John Paul II, find out which speeches he gave in January 1992 and list the first three of those speeches. Describe stepwise your actions and experiences when carrying out this task, at a level of detail that allows one to replicate your steps. It does not really matter whether you actually find the correct solution, but try your best.

Note: Only use the Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome web browsers for this task, and make sure Java/JavaScript is on. Give up after 10 minutes if you don't succeed (but still describe your experiences).

Task 2. Describe a usability problem that you encountered in the past. This is not restricted to software systems, but may relate to any man-made system. Check out http://www.baddesigns.com/examples.html to refresh your memory.
Explain the problems that you encountered and their impacts on you. Describe your suggestions for improvement. Do not write more than half a page, unless you need more space to describe the problem or your suggestions. Try to express your experiences in terms of the central measurable human factors for user interface evaluation that we learned in class.

 

Upload your homework by 11:55pm on Jan. 15, 2012 in this dropbox. Late panelty is 5% of maximal score per beginning hour. No submissions accepted after 4pm on Jan. 16, 2012.

Problems with upload to dropbox? EEE wrote on 1/13/12:

Internet Explorer 9: The EEE Web Team and systems administrators are working on an issue that prevents EEE from loading in Internet Explorer 9 and we will post a notice on EEE when we have scheduled the necessary systems administration work to address it. In the meantime, please use a different web browser (such as Firefox).
DropBox Uploads: We have recieved reports of an anomaly sporadically interfering with uploads to DropBox. We are working on this issue now.

If you experience troubles uploading your homework, the (a) try again after a few minutes, (b) try again after a few minutes, (c) try  one more time after a few minutes, and (d) send it to Bart.K@uci.edu if the upload still doesn't work. No need to wait of course if you hit the 11:55pm deadline :-)