Month: February 2018

Week 5: Social Context

Course Organisation

  • 128 have successfully submitted, 1 has an extension. Looking forward to reading and marking your case studies! We hope to have your feedback ready by March 1 at the very latest.
  • Start thinking about your usability report
  • If you are asking about slides from class: Remember that we are not really using slides. All materials are online, on this web site. An archive of some of the class discussion is on TopHat, where you can see each other’s contributions. Unfortunately, I still haven’t managed to get Media Hopper Replay up and running on my private laptop; there are no facilities in the labs.

Week Structure for the Remaining Weeks

For each of Weeks 6 and 7, you can choose  three out of 12 tasks to complete. These tasks will go live on Top Hat on Wednesday morning, 9am. I will be around between 11am and 3pm (details on the page for the week) on Wednesday to field questions and talk to you about what you find. Post your notes on each task to Top Hat.

The Questions and Comments will remain open until Wednesday midnight, there will be no quiz.

Week 6: Accessing Heritage.

You will be going through the Royal Museum of Scotland and the National Museum of Scotland, and look at how people access and experience the exhibits on display. A list of exhibits will be posted to Top Hat as tasks. The  Page for the week, to be published on Friday, will have more details.

Week 7: Accessibility of the City.

You choose one type of barrier (hearing, mobility, dexterity, no English language skills) and explore how this impairment might affect the experience of visitor attractions and shops. A list of attractions and shops will be posted to Top Hat as tasks. Again, the page will have more details.

Week 8: To Be Determined

Either Industrial Action or topic decided by vote; watch out for an announcement on March 13.

Week 9: Computer-Supported Cooperative Work

As usual – questions and comments plus quiz. From this week onwards, I hope that we have a proper lecture theatre again.

Week 10: Guest Lecture by Dorota Glowacka on Information Retrieval
Week 11: Guest Lecture by Benjamin Bach on Data Visualisation

Starting Point: Online Games as Social Networks

Examples of networks and network-like elements in Games:

  1. Farmville
  2. World of Warcraft

How the World of Warcraft community discusses cyberbullying

A long read on cyberbullying in World of Warcraft

Themes from Questions and Comments and Activities

Race and socioeconomic status

One student pointed out in the questions and comments – quite rightly! – that it appears rude and unthoughtful to say that race is correlated with socioeconomic status.

Race does not determine socioeconomic status; in the current century, you will find people of all races and skin colours at all levels of society. However, in some societies, people of some races are much more likely to be disadvantaged and feel disadvantaged.

Here are some resources:

Activity 1: Definition of Race

If you look at the definitions of race in the US versus the UK, what are the main differences? Why do you think some ethnic groups are highlighted? Tip: For the US, look at the Wage Gaps data; for the UK, look at the Government definition.

What is socioeconomic status?

Going back to the two UK resources, you will see that they highlight several areas of inequality. The Race Report talks about Employment, Education, Living Standards, Crime, and Health and Care. All of these contribute to socioeconomic status. Each of these areas is made up of separate statistics.

Activity 2: Aspects of Socioeconomic Status

What aspects are discussed in the UK Government statistics? How might each of the six areas (Education, Crime, Housing, Health, Work, Culture) contribute to the likelihood that

  • a person has a cheap smartphone
  • a person has a laptop
  • a person has a high-end smartphone (Galaxy S8, iPhone X)

Accommodating Users: Where do We Stop?

It all depends on what you are designing, and what your context of use is. The most useful framework I’ve found so far is the Inclusive Design Cube (Fig. 1, Keates, Clarkson, and Robinson, 2002). Most of your design should be accessible to most people, across the digital divide, and across ability levels.

However, you may choose, depending on your market, to restrict your app, website, or solution to the higher end of the digital divide.

Activity 3: Who is your audience?

Think about the following apps and web sites. Which ones are most likely to be used by people across the digital divide? Which ones are likely to be used by people with mobility, dexterity,  hearing, or vision impairment?

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Uber
  • Priority Pass (airline lounges)
  • Helicopter Hire Web Site
  • justeat
  • UberEats
  • Deliveroo
  • Supermarket online shopping
  • Booking.com
  • Hostelworld
  • amazon.co.uk
  • Ferrari
  • Airline support services for passengers who need special assistance

 

 

Week 4: Usability Assessment Techniques

Course Organisation

In Weeks 6 and 7, our classroom will be the city – we are going out into Edinburgh for our class activities. Watch this space!

If you can’t see Questions and Comments or the Quiz any more after you’ve completed it, that’s because they are no longer visible to you after the due date has passed. These assignments are pass / fail, and you pass them if you complete them before the deadline. This is why I don’t allow late submissions, and once the deadline has passed, you can no longer see them in your student view.

Structure of the Session

We will be working mostly with TopHat on practical applications of user assessment techniques.

Task 1: Evaluating Hotel Booking Systems

Choose the hotel booking service with which you are most familiar. How many clicks does it take you to see a list of hotels near London King’s Cross station with free WiFi and a fitness centre? How many different web pages / app pages do you have to visit? How long (in seconds) does it take you to see this? You can do this either by yourself or in groups of 3-4, where one person does the search, one person counts clicks, one person uses a timer, and one person keeps track of pages.

For people with a HCI background: Document the choices available at each step. How can people zoom in on the desired area? What do they need to know about London to do so? If a property has a fitness centre, what do users need to do to figure out whether it has any dumbbells, or whether it just consists of cardio machines? Which kind of person would care about the quality of the hotel gym?

All of you should do the search. If you are searching in a group, then vary your destination – London King’s Cross, Leicester Square, Royal Albert Hall, Greenwich. If you are not working in a group, or if there are less than four of you, make sure that you check out every destination on different booking engines.

Is there anything you can’t find easily? Is there any information that does not appear in the list version?

If you can’t think of a booking engine, try booking.com, lastminute.com, kayak.co.uk.

Rate your booking engine on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is very bad and 5 is excellent.

Demonstration: Gray Dawes booking system (Traveldoo)

Task 2: System Usability Scale

Complete a System Usability Scale for the  booking engine you tested yourself.

Demonstration: Analysis of Usability Data

Task 3: Comparing Your Findings to What Others Say

For people without an HCI background: Find the app of one of the booking engines that you examined on the App Store. What are the reviews like? Do they agree with what you’ve found?

For people with an HCI background: Draw up three personas, student on a budget, business traveller, backpacker on a gap year. What are their needs? Who could you ask to find out? Where on the Internet could you find some information without having to interview people? Work alone or in groups of 2-3.