Heuristic Evaluation Weakness And Strength Computer Science Essay

Heuristic Evaluation Weakness And Strength Computer Science Essay When choosing a usability evaluation method, it is important to understand what usability evaluation is. Usability evaluation evaluates how the interface of certain software or product works. How the test is conducted and how detailed the test can be, how it will react on tests and so on. For this study, heuristic evaluation is selected as the main analytical inspection method and for the empirical method, Usability Testing is selected. First introduced by Jakob Nielson in early 90s, the evaluation for usability was created to enhance evaluation method by taking elements such as, user interface(Rogers and Preece, 2007, p.686), dialog boxes, menus, navigation structure , online help and etc.(Rogers and Preece, 2007, p.686). This evaluation method was called heuristic evaluation and when its early establishment, usability evaluation guideline has a long list of method (Nielsen and Molich, 1990), and Nielson shorten the list to only ten of main heuristic evaluation which is(Nielsen, 2005); Visibility of system status: The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. Match between system and the real world: The system should speak the users language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order. User control and freedom: Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked emergency exit to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo. Consistency and standards: Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions. Error prevention: Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action. Recognition rather than recall: Minimize the users memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate. Flexibility and efficiency of use: Accelerators unseen by the novice user may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions. Aesthetic and minimalist design: Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution. Help and documentation: Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the users task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large. These sets of rules or guideline set the benchmark on how to evaluate usability on interface designs. For example, Mook (2008) research on Microsoft Windows XP Usability testing that is conducted by Bloomberg University, Washington shows that several functionality testing is conducted with the participation of students from the same University, such as setting up an email account, writing an letter, saving a letter copy and sending the final were the part of a important study on how those interface function works. Heuristic Evaluation Strength Heuristic evaluation can be seen as one of the usability methods that is knows as Usability discount engineering (Useit, 2001). The main advantages of Heuristic Evaluation can be verified as cost efficient, intuitive, planning on evaluation doesnt need any advance feature and it can be used easily in early development phases (Nielson and Molich, 1990). Cost Efficient: Cost Efficient or cheap means that it can be implemented in any development phases. For example, when creating a System, evaluation can be done on interfaces that are in Prototype Development Phase. This evaluation can be easily done without jeopardizing the cost when evaluating.(Cockton et.al, 2003) Intuitive: Intuitive means that is it easy to ask people to evaluate using Heuristic evaluation method, for example, evaluation can be done both by students or professionals and independently. (Nielsel and Molich, 1990). Advance Planning not required: Heuristic Evaluation also doesnt need advance planning prior to evaluation, meaning that it is evaluated with the rules or guidelines, with reference to Ten Usability Guidelines. Can be used easily in early development phases: Evaluation or test can be done before the final finished product is out. Meaning that it can be tested within the prototype or beta version of the product. Heuristic Evaluation Weakness Not currently solving identified problems: According to Nielson and Molich (1990), one of the disadvantages of Heuristic evaluation is problem are identified regardless of suggestions how to solve them. For example, once the problem has been identified, evaluators doesnt tend to get information for how to resolve the current problems. Working on multiple number of problems: As suggested by Nielsen and Molich (1990), evaluators just tend to identify several small usability issues, though several more are experts are useful to identify multiple problems. Not suitable on complex interfaces: Because in heuristic evaluation uses small amount of evaluators, they tend to missed out several issues, such as minor issues in complex interfaces. Usability Testing Description The approach for Usability Testing is the test that is conducted toward a product or website to ensure that the product or website is in functional state. Meanwhile, empirical uses more approach towards the thorough observation of the current system. The goal of Usability Testing is to get feedback from users whether the product that is being developed is usable by its standards. Usability testing in earlier days is conducted to investigate the usability efficiency features on interfaces (Rogers and Preece, 2007, p.646). For example, tests conducted on twelve students, by the Wichita State University (Lenz, 2008), to test usability of several gaming peripherals, such as gaming joystick, gaming pad and mouse. Participants of this test firstly need to fill out a questionnaire based on their gaming experience (Lenz, 2008) and their objective is to eliminate 15 enemy robots as quickly and efficiency as possible (Lenz, 2008). These results are recorded and later processed to be viewed as a full video. Data recorded such as how many enemies killed, time to be taken to kill an enemy and how many shots fired per kill are recorded (Lenz, 2008). Usability testing is divided into two groups, which is analytical and empirical, the analytical method means that the evaluated system are thoroughly checked and examined to crucially identify problems. Usability Testing Strength Usability Testing is a procedure that ensures that the final product is meeting the current specification and doing the tasks it supposed to do. Several advantages of Usability Testing can be identified, such as direct feedback from users, how to react to problems and resolving potential problems, if arises (McGregor, n.d) Direct Feedback from Users: Getting the required feedback from users is one of the advantages when using the usability testing. For example, questionnaires are such tools when using usability testing. Hands on users usage on interfaces are also one of the direct feedbacks that are used in usability testing. For example, testers on interactive websites can directly interact with websites and gives feedback to evaluators respectively. How to react to current problem: If problem arises, evaluators can react directly to specific problems and options. For example, when evaluating websites, if certain links are not working, the evaluators can directly spot the problems Resolving potential Problems: Launch of the final product can be done and fixing by the final product is launched. For example, once the problems are spotted, any problems can be fixed in mean time before the product is finalized. Usability Testing Weaknesses Costly in regards of equipment, staffing and facility: For example, when conducting tests, costs of equipment can be high, because of setting up of computers, questionnaires and so on. Analysis of data collected is complex: Once the tests are conducted, evaluators need to analyze those data. Usually these data are complex, for example going through hundreds of questionnaires to get the final data, this create more time consuming on staff. Require commitments by testers: For example, test on websites with a 10 students currently testing interfaces on websites will need full commitments of students, thus creating inflexible time rate with the testers. Task 2 Introduction LiveAtc Website is a live Air Traffic Control online website that enables visitors to hear live ATC from various airports in the world. Although overall look of the website is reasonable, but there are number of issues that will cause problems for users visiting to the site. Using heuristic evaluation of the website, users will generally satisfy when visiting the site. Heuristic Evaluation Heuristic Evaluation will be used upon evaluating of the website. The basic ten general heuristic are; Visibility of system status. Match between system and the real world. User control and freedom. Consistency and standards. Error prevention. Recognition rather than recall. Flexibility and efficiency of use. Aesthetic and minimalist design. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors. Help and documentation. Evaluated Website: http://www.liveatc.net Date Accessed: 20 November 2010. Nielsen(n.d) also suggested that a scale rating from 0(Zero) to 4(Four) should be used to identify the severity of the problem. Rating Description 0 No Usability Problem At All. 1 Cosmetic problem only; need not be fixed unless extra time is available on project. 2 Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority. 3 Major usability problem: important to fix, so should be given high priority. 4 Usability catastrophe: imperative to fix this before product can be released. Table 1: Nielsen recommended severity table. Problem 1 Brief description of problem: Color hyperlink coding not available thus denying link recognition Problem for User: User has to remember each link page before moving to another one, thus making problem remembering where theyre left before. Heuristic conformed to: Recognition rather than recall, because User has to recall where theyve been before rather than having color hyperlink recognition. Severity of the problem: Rating number 3; Major usability problem: important to fix, so should be given high priority. Problem 2 Brief description of problem: Website doesnt have any back button to the link before it, thus making user have to use the back browser button instead. Problem for User: User will have problem navigation from each link to another without a back or forward button. Heuristic conformed to: User control and freedom, because user doesnt have any control and freedom for each link, thus will limit them on going back and forward on each link. Severity of the problem: Rating number 4, Usability catastrophe: imperative to fix this before product can be released. Problem 3 Brief description of problem: Website design is complicated. Banner and icons are not properly aligned. Webpage width and size for different links are not standardized. The content copyright footer doesnt align properly. Problem for User: On some pages, User have to scroll down to just click the About button, because there is no standardization between web links within the pages. Heuristic conformed to : Consistency and standards , because the website doesnt have consistency and standards such as , between pages, there is no standard size or page limit, certain web links have different size and confusing links. Severity of the problem: Rating number 3, Major usability problem: important to fix, so should be given high priority. Problem 4 Brief description of problem: On the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page, it links to another site, which is a forum site. This hinder user from get quick help from the website but rather have to ask and wait for a required help. Problem for user: User would have to search from a long list of FAQ and by the end of the list; they might not find the required answer. Asking in a forum would just make the user wait for answers rather getting the answer immediately. Heuristic conformed to: Help and documentation, because of the nature of the FAQ given on the site, long lists of FAQ are given. But not all would cater the needs of the user and the FAQ link is not so helpful on users. Severity of the problem: Rating number 2, Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority. Problem 5 Brief description of problem: Website doesnt have an effective navigation menu. For example, the main page has a poor navigation menu. Links are not properly justified and creates confusion. Problem for User: User often gets confused on whether the link is as one or not because there is no separation between links. Heuristic conformed to: Visibility of system status. This is because lack of features such as effective navigation menu hinders the user to have easy usability of the website. Severity of the problem: Rating number 2, Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority. Problem 6 Brief description of problem: There is no accessibility features for users who has problems viewing the icons and fonts on the website. Zoom feature or enlarging the site features should help. Problem for user: User who have accessibility problem will have difficulties going through the site as there is no accessibility features such as font enlargement or zoom features. Heuristic conformed to: Flexibility and inefficiency of use, because accessibility features are not anywhere in the website or in their links. Severity of the problem: Rating number 2, Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority. Summary According to Nielsen (n.d), related usability problem can be found in four ways, that is, in a single location in the interface, at two or more locations that have to be compared to find. Overall structure of the problem interface and something that can be included in the interface but it is missing. In the Heuristic evaluation done above, the biggest single problem with the LiveAtc website is that, the design is too simple and would only cater with experienced visitor or user. Although problems can be identified more than six (6), but the most obvious problem is what has been evaluated above. Problems would occur if inexperience visitor is browsing through the site and would have difficulties such as navigating and understanding regardless the anonymity of the un-standardized of some web links it has. Severity rating when evaluating the website was from two (2) to four (4) rating, with reference to the Nielsen Severity Rating table. This shows that the website has problems range fro m cosmetic until problems that need to be fixed before publishing it to the internet. According to Nielsen experience with rating severity in heuristic evaluation (Nielsen, n.d), he suggested that, severity ratings from a single evaluator are too unreliable to be trusted and recommend a three (3) evaluator when doing heuristic evaluation. Accuracy and reliability of rating severity determines from how complicated the product or website that would want to be evaluated. LiveATC website is a very simple website and when judging from the Nielsen experience when rating severity, it could be that the accuracy of the evaluation would be more reliable because of the simplicity of the website evaluated.

Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed 1998 war film Saving Private Ryan tells the story of the search for Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), an American soldier missing in Normandy, France, during the Second World War. Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) receives orders to assemble a group of soldiers to find the fourth son of the Ryan family, who have received notification on the same day of the death of three of their sons while in action. The film opens with an aged veteran visiting the American Cemetery in Normandy with his wife, children and grandchildren. He falls to his knees and breaks down in tears at the graveside of a fallen comrade. The film then cuts to a twenty-five minute sequence which has become the focus of much close analysis and critical commentary. The reconstruction of the US landings on Omaha Beach on the 6 June 1944, at the beginning of the Normandy invasion, places the viewer at the centre of the bloody onslaught, as machine-guns fire mercilessly into the bodies of the soldiers as they make they way forward into German defences. Bodies are ripped apart (a soldier holds his exposed intestines), limbs fly in the air (a soldier bends down to pick up his lost arm), bodies catch fire, and the ceaseless unnerving rattle of gun fire, represent a stunningly powerful and vivid experience for the film’s viewers. â€Å"The intense and fearful exhilaration created by a freely and rapidly moving camera is central. The graphic realism of the sequence; with the continuous jerky movement of hand-held cameras, capturing the madness and confusion of the battle; and the painstaking attention to gory detail, with blood and water splashing the camera lens, was to be heralded by many as one of Spielberg’s defining cinematic achievements. Hendrik Hertzberg wrote on the film’s release in ‘The New Yorker’: â€Å"What makes â€Å"Saving Private Ryan† utterly distinctive is the sense that it has no agenda other than to capture the experience of being a combat soldier in the last global war. The vivid depiction of death and injury experienced by Captain Miller, as he succeeds in leading his company of Rangers at Omaha Beach, sets the tone for the remaining two hours of the film, as the viewer follows him in his next mission to find and return James Ryan to his mother. Captain Miller assembles seven men for the task, and the soldiers move into Normandy’s neighbouring Neuville. Private Carpazo (Vin Diesel) is the group’s first victim, when he is shot dead by a German sniper. With tempers fraying and internal mistrust building, the locating of James Frederick Ryan, the wrong soldier, leads to further dissent. However Captain Miller finally discovered Ryan’s whereabouts, in Ramelle, following a chance meeting with one of his friends. On the way to Ryan the soldiers loose their second victim, Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), and Miller’s leadership is again questioned when he prevents a surrendered German being shot by one of his men, named Reiben, (Edward Burns), and sets him free. Captain Miller succeeds in reasserting trust, confidence and comradeship in the group by revealing personal details about his past and origins, including his position as an English teacher. Susan Hayward writes: â€Å"the gore of war is matched by the unheralded heroism of an individual who stands for humanity. † When the group of remaining soldier finally reach Ramelle they find American paratroopers, including Ryan, defending the town from advancing German troops with very few soldiers. When told of their mission, and the death of his brothers, Ryan refuses to stand down, instead courageously heading for the bridge which will need to be held, asking Miller and his men to join him. As the German tanks arrive, Miller reluctantly agrees and takes command of the few soldiers. Heavily outnumbered, malnourished and exhausted, most of Captain Miller’s men are fatally injured. Spielberg again graphically visualises the horror of war as one man is stabbed, another shot in the throat, and another shot down with repeated unrelenting gun fire. Spielberg uses camera distancing and focal points as a means to involve the viewer within the frantic action of this battle sequence. The knowledge that somewhere above snipers prey on the men is constantly drawn upon. Captain Miller himself is eventually shot down and soon dies in the arms of Ryan as backup arrives too late from another American infantry. The town is saved, but only three men, including Ryan, survive. As the film ends the veteran at the graveside of Captain Miller is revealed to be James Ryan. He stands to attention and salutes the American flag, which lies on the grave, acknowledging his comrade’s sacrifice and honour in his own and his country’s name. Saving Private Ryan received much critical acclaim, including eleven Academy Award nominations. Steven Spielberg achieved the Best Director award, Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and film editor Michael Kahn’s contribution to the film’s brutal realism was also acknowledged by the Academy. Produced with an estimated budget of â€Å"$70 000 000† Saving Private Ryan was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures, and distributed by Spielberg’s Production Company DreamWorks, andmade â€Å"$30, 576, 104† on its opening weekend alone. The continued popularity of the film, by audiences and critics, and what has led many to label the film as the best War film ever made, is attributable to the timelessness of the visual effects and memorable scenes (most notably the opening Omaha sequence, and the final battle for the bridge). The historical accuracy and artistic license of the film has been invariably considered in the decade following the release of Saving Private Ryan, but the consensus is that the style and form of the film ensure a powerful and captivating, if harrowing, experience for any viewer. It is a film which places audiences at the centre of the narrative; viewers are â€Å"encouraged to review and consider what they see- and, if point-of-view matters, to contemplate why. † As with his earlier graphic Holocaust film Schindler’s List (1993), Steven Spielberg ambition is to exceed visual entertainment, using reconstructive dramatisation as a means to ‘experience’ the unimaginable in a wholly believable way.

The Insider Secret on Argumentative Thesis Statement Exposed

The Insider Secret on Argumentative Thesis Statement Exposed A History of Argumentative Thesis Statement Refuted Your important intention behind composing the paper is easily the most important element to you. Your capacity to compose an education-related thesis is extremely essential not only for the academic intent. Much like every great speech or story, you will need to get an introduction in regard to what your thesis outline is about and what aspects your research will be covering. Background material usually appears at the beginning of the essay, between the intro and the very first analytical part, but may be added at the start of a specific section to which it is relevant. The credibility and dependability of an essay are reduced if you've got an overly-stated thesis statement. To answer the very first point, before you may answer the question posed by the prompt, you need to answer how you're feeling about the question for yourself. The best method to approach your thesis statement is to examine the essay as a means to tackle your subject and not a last statement. Thru your thesis statement, your audience is going to have an idea concerning what you're attempting to prove in your essay. Whereas, if it's too broad it can't be fully supported without being of book length. Writing an education thesis statement is no simple feat even in case you have excellent writing skills. The argumentative essay is a typical assignment, but teachers may present it in a number of distinct ways. There are numerous essay writing services that think they're the very best, and therefore don't be cheated and check the genuine collection of the very best. What to Expect From Argumentative Thesis Statement? Should it, you're on your way to a thriving essay. Your readers will be aware of what to search for in the essay. You should have the ability to string words together that will continue to keep your audience glued to the essay since if they like your the sis statement, there's a possibility they will read the essay. If you cannot highlight your thesis, your essay will surely be less than par. You need to be well-acquainted with all sorts of essays to be able to write a great essay. You can also see persuasive essay. Argumentative essays have some basic features which you should have in your essay. Argumentative Thesis Statement Explained Your thesis statement needs to be something which captures the interest of your audience. The vague terms may also create the statement a small boring for the reader and might not entice them to read on. Put simply, if it's presented unclearly, vaguely, or in an overly complicated way, it is going to be quite hard to back this up effectively in the remainder of the essay. If you're looking for top essay writing companies, try out the mentioned above. Simply take a while to explore your suggestions and find some things down on paper by utilizing an invention activity. The reason a topic is so vital is because it colors the remainder of your whole thesi s. There are a lot of fantastic choices for ending an argumentative essay that may help you decide how to format your conclusion. The Honest to Goodness Truth on Argumentative Thesis Statement Take notes as you read your sources. Before you finish working on your essay, you should make sure that you've cited all your sources employing the suitable format. Generally speaking, argumentative essays require that you support the argument you're making using logic and support from your research. Vital Pieces of Argumentative Thesis Statement Now that you understand more about the way to compose an effective thesis statement, you can commence writing your own thesis. Select the specific standpoint for creating your thesis powerful and effective It is almost always better to address a single issue for your thesis paper. It is the most important part of your writing. Writing your thesis is a huge job for virtually any area of study. Get the Scoop on Argumentative Thesis Statemen t Before You're Too Late The subject of your essay ought to be big enough for you to compose the webpage requirement your instructor assigned. Education is a sizable field, and topic tips for a Master's thesis can be challenging to narrow. Your thesis or dissertation topic needs to be unique as it should add something new to the present literature. A strong thesis irrespective of your topic should have the ability to inform your readers about what they can count on from it. The War Against Argumentative Thesis Statement Thus, you've got to concentrate on one of the facets of education. So, it is going to be better idea to offer technological education to our children in future. Thus, you've got to make the very best effort for composing the most informative and appealing thesis statement on education. When you begin researching on the subject of education, you can come across several things to write for your thesis. The thesis statement is normally the last portion of the introduction, following the hook and background info. An argumentative thesis must earn a claim that's logical and possible. You have a couple interesting options concerning an argumentative thesis statement.

What Are the Differences Between Tallies and Counts

In statistics, the words tally and count are subtlely different from one another, though both involve dividing statistical data into categories, classes, or bins. Although the words are commonly used interchangeably, tallies rely on organizing data into these classes while counts rely on actually enumerating the amount in each class. Particularly when constructing a histogram or bar graph, there are times when we distinguish between a tally and a count, so its important to understand what each of these means when used in statistics, though its also important to note that there are a few disadvantages to using either of these organizational tools. Both tally and counting systems result  in a loss of some information. When we see that there are three data values in a given class without the source data, it is impossible to know what those three data values were, rather that they fall somewhere in a statistical range dictated by the class name. As a result, a statistician who wants to retain information about the individual data values in a graph would need to use a  stem and leaf plot  instead. How to Effectively Use Tally Systems To perform a tally with a set of data requires one to sort the data. Typically statisticians are confronted with a data set that is not in any type of order at all, so the goal is to sort this data into different categories, classes, or bins. A tally system is a convenient and efficient way to sort data into these classes. Unlike other methods where statisticians can make mistakes before counting how many data points fall into each class, the tally system reads the data as it is listed and makes a tally mark | in the corresponding class. It is common to group tally marks into fives so that it will be easier to count these markings later. This is sometimes done by making the fifth tally mark as a diagonal slash across the first four. For example, suppose you are trying to break the following data set into the classes 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9,10:   1, 8, 1, 9, 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, 5, 7, 1, 8, 2, 4, 1, 9, 3, 5, 2, 4, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 In order to properly tally these figures, we would first write down the classes then place tally marks to the right of the colon each time a number in the data set corresponds to one of the classes, as illustrated below: 1-2 : | | | | | | |3-4 : | | | | | | | |5-6 : | | |7-8 : | | | |9-10: | | | From this tally, one can see the beginnings of a histogram, which can then be used to illustrate and compare the trends of each class appearing in the data set. In order to do this more accurately, one must then refer to a count to enumerate how many of each tally marks exist in each class. How to Effectively Use Count Systems A count is different than a tally in that tally systems are no longer rearranging or organizing data, instead they are literally counting the number of occurrences of values that belong to each class in the data set. The easiest way to do this, and indeed why statisticians use them, are by counting the number of tallies in tally systems. Counting is harder to do with raw data like that found in the set above because one must keep individual track of multiple classes without the use of tally marks — thats why counting is typically the last step in data analytics before adding these values to histograms or bar graphs. The tally performed above has the following counts. For each line, all that we have to do now is state how many tally marks fall into each class. Each of the following rows of data are arranged Class : Tally : Count:   1-2 : | | | | | | | : 73-4 : | | | | | | | | : 85-6 : | | | : 37-8 : | | | | : 49-10: | | | : 3 With this system of measurements all arranged together, statisticians can then observe the data set from a more logical viewpoint and begin to make assumptions based off of the relationships between each data class.