Sample questions from the "theory" book (Shneiderman) for CS 5551 Exams
version 0.9

The questions from Shneiderman's web page have a period after the question
number; I made up new questions that have an asterisk (*) after the question
number.

Chapter 1:

1. Describe the four goals for requirements analysis.
Answer: Section 1.2

2. Describe the five usability measures that should be taken into account
  during user interface design that are central to evaluation of an
  interface.
Answer: Section 1.3

3. What are the five primary sources of motivation (application areas) for
  human factors in design?  Give an example of each.
Answer: the 5 subsections of Section 1.4

4. How does the design of a life-critical system differ from that of other
   systems?
Answer: Section 1.4.1

5. Compare and contrast motivating factors between life-critical systems and
   those for home, office, or entertainment.
Answer: Section 1.4

6. Briefly identify some areas of human diversity that challenge the
   developers of interactive systems.
Answer: the "headers" for the subsections of Section 1.5

7. What are some design concerns pertaining to cultural and international
  diversity?
Answer: Section 1.5.4


Chapter 2:
         
1. Which among Guidlines, Principles, and Theories is at the highest
  level of abstraction?  Answer: Theories   Which is at the lowest
  level?  Answer: Guidlines
         
2. Discuss devices (techniques) for getting the user's attention. 
  How and why are they implemented?
Answer: Section 2.2.3

3* List (some of) Shneiderman's 8 Golden Rules of Interface Design.
Answer: Section 2.3.4
         
4. Give an example and discuss the implementation of one of Shneiderman's
  Golden Rules of Interface Design.
Answer: Section 2.3.4
         
5. Describe the Foley and van Dam cognitive model.
Answer: Section 2.4.1
 
6. Define "gulf of execution" and "gulf of evaluation."
Answer: Section 2.4.2
         
7. List and explain Norman's four principles of good design.
Answer: Section 2.4.2
         
 ------------ End of material for the midterm exam Fall 2005 ----------
    i.e ignore the questions below until studying for the final exam


Chapter 5:

1* Natural-language specification of an interface tends to be ___, ___, and
  ___, which makes them difficult to prove ___, ___, and ___.
Answer: Section 5.2

2* List some (non-natural-language) specification methods.
Answer: Headings of subsections of Section 5.2

3. Why are transition diagrams useful? 
   What problems can occur when they are used?
Answer: Section 5.2.3
         
4* What are the 4 benefits of using interface-building tools?
Answer: Section 5.3 Box 5.1
         
5* List software-engineering tools (not visual editing tools) to aid in
  interface programming?
Answer: Section 5.3.2 (Tcl/Tk, Java, JavaScript)
         
6. Pick two different user-interface-building tools, then compare and
   contrast them.
Answer: Section 5.3 (won't ask this)
        

Chapter 6:

1* List some of the positive feelings associated with good user interfaces.
Answer: Section 6.1

2* List some direct manipulation or virtual systems.
Answer: Section 6.2 (full-page "display" editors, WYSIWYG word processors,
spreadsheets, video games, HyperCard, Quicken).

3. Give four benefits and four problems of direct manipulation.
Answer: Section 6.3 - skip "benefits"; Section 6.3.1 lists problems

4* List some guidelines for creating icons.
Answer: Section 6.3.3

5* List (some of) the five challenges of programming the user interface by
using direct manipulation. 
Answer: Section 6.3.4

6* List three complicating factors in operating in a remote environment.
Answer: Section 6.5

7* List some features of successful virtual environments.
Answer: Section 6.x - skip (not in 4th Ed. of text)


Chapter 7: - Skip


Chapter 8:

1. List four basic goals of language design (thinking in terms of a
command-line language).
Answer: Section 8.1



 ------------------- Ignore the following from the 3rd Ed. -------------

Chapter 13:

1* List some "window housekeeping" actions.
Answer: opening, closing, moving, changing size 

2. Compare a hierarchical browser and a nested-indented scrolling-list browser
for a directory structure that has four levels and ten branches at each level
(10,000 items).  In each case the window size is ten items long.  Write an
argument in favor of the hierarchical browser and try to estimate the amount
of time for typical tasks.  (won't ask this one)


Chapter 14:

1. Describe the time-space matrix traditionally used to decompose cooperative
systems.  Include an example for each "cell" in your answer.
Note that "different time, different place" is the most common (e.g. email).
Answer: Section 14.2 page 481


Chapter 15: 
(Not covered fall 2003.)

1. What is the four-phase framework that describes what users typically go
through in a textual search?
Answer: Page 3 of class notes or Section 15.2 page 516 (or Box 15.1, p. 517).