The Essential Guide to User Interface Design



The Essential Guide to User Interface Design - 3rd Edition

Wilbert O. Galitz

TEST QUESTIONS

Step 1: Know Your User or Client

Short Answer

1. List five reasons why people have trouble with computer systems.

2. Explain the proximity principle in human perception?

3. Explain the concept of “signal versus noise.”

4. What are the three stages of the human action cycle?

5. What is the name of the law that states “The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target?”

6. Cognitive load is the amount of mental activity required to perform a task or achieve an objective. What design principles can be implement to reduce the user’s cognitive load?

7. What design principles can be implemented to aid user learning of a system?

8. Why should the need for a mighty memory be minimized?

9. There is no average user. People vary greatly in many aspects. What impact do these differences have in design?

10. What is a mental model?

True/False

1. The user’s preference is the most important aspect to consider in design.

True or False?

2. Ease of use promotes use.

True or False?

3. Perception is influenced by our expectancies; sometimes we perceive not what is there but what we expect to be there.

True or False?

4. Today, a person’s short-term working memory is thought to be seven plus or minus two items.

True or False?

5. User confusion and annoyance are often a response to poor design.

True or False?

6. A person’s peripheral vision plays no role in viewing a screen.

True or False?

7. In design, understanding and utilizing a person’s learned mental models is important.

True or False?

8. Expert users greatly depend on system features that assist recognition memory: menus, prompting information, and instructional and help screens.

True or False?

9. Understanding the user’s knowledge and experience, tasks and needs, and psychological characteristics is all that is necessary in interface design.

True or False?

10. Developers have been working with users for a long time. They always know everything users want and need.

True or False?

Multiple Choice

1. What is the average reading grade level in North America?

a) Grades 5 to 6.

b) Grades 8 to 9.

c) Grades 11 to 12.

2. Which of the following are characteristics of human perception?

a) Similarity.

b) Succinctness.

c) Two-Dimensional Projection.

d) Closure.

e) Unity.

f) Balance.

g) Bottom-Down Lighting Bias.

h) All of the above.

3. In terms of physical or cognitive characteristics, older computer users have been found by research to differ from younger users. Which of these characteristics describe the older user, as compared to the younger user?

a) Poorer vision.

b) Poorer hearing.

c) Less educated.

d) Slower cognitive processing.

e) Diminished manual dexterity.

f) Lower vocabulary scores.

g) All of the above.

4. Reducing a user’s physical or kinematic load can be accomplished by:

a) Minimizing the number of steps to accomplish tasks.

b) Minimizing control actions and movements.

c) Minimizing the number of screens.

d) Automating repetitive tasks.

e) All of the above.

5. The human action cycle is:

a) A physical reaction to poor design.

b) A physical movement in interaction with a computer.

c) A psychological model that describes how people interact with computer systems.

d) A psychological reaction to good design.

6. Important user/task considerations in design include:

a) System experience.

b) Frequency of use.

c) Education.

d) Motivation.

e) Social interactions.

f) Disabilities.

g) All of the above.

7. A user’s memory load can be reduced by:

a) Allowing the computer to control the pace of information presentation.

b) Placing all required information for task performance in close physical proximity.

c) Making important items unique or distinctive in some manner.

d) Presenting information in an organized, structured, familiar, and meaningful way.

e) Placing important items in the middle of a listing, not at the beginning or at the end.

f) All of the above.

8. In an interaction with a computer, a screen may be considered as comprised of signals and noise.

A signal has what characteristics?

a) It is the important part of the screen.

b) It is the irrelevant part of the screen.

c) It may change to noise depending upon the needs of the user at the moment.

d) It should be easily distinguishable from noise.

e) It may interfere with the perception of noise.

f) All of the above.

Noise has what characteristics?

a) It is the important part of the screen.

b) It is the irrelevant part of the screen.

c) It may change to a signal depending upon the needs of the user at one moment.

d) It should be easily distinguishable from signals.

e) It may interfere with the perception of signals.

f) All of the above.

9. Which of the following characteristics of human memory are correct?

a) Today, the capacity of short-term memory is viewed as about seven items.

b) Long term memory contains the knowledge we possess.

c) Knowledge, experience, and familiarity govern the size and complexity of the information that can be remembered.

d) Short-term memory, or working memory, receives information from either the senses or long-term memory and can receive and handle both at once.

e) Memory capacity does not diminish with age.

f) When performing complex tasks, working memory can be increased through applying two senses, vision and audition, rather than one.

g) Performance can be degraded when a person must attend to multiple information sources, and then must integrate the information before understanding occurs.

h) All of the above.

10. Which of the following are characteristics of expert users of systems?

a) Expect rapid performance.

b) Need less informative feedback.

c) Depend on system features that assist recognition memory.

d) Pay less attention to low level details and surface features of a system.

e) Seek efficiency.

f) Have difficulty relating new knowledge to their objectives and goals.

g) All of the above.

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