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Homework 3: Evaluate Designs for Scrolling

For 05-440/05-640: Interaction Techniques, Spring, 2016

Assigned Monday, Feb. 15, 2016, due: Monday, Feb. 29, 2016

Be sure to see the policies for grading, late turn-in, cheating etc, on the homework policy page.

NOTE: TURN IN THIS ASSIGNMENT IN HARDCOPY IN CLASS on Monday, Feb. 29, 2016. Please print out your entire report on paper, staple it together, and bring it to class. (If you have to miss class for any reason, you can turn in your hardcopy in advance in my office, NSH 3517, or if necessary, upload your assignment to Blackboard to demonstrate that you have it done on time.) Be sure your name is on your report!

In this assignment, each student will evaluate four (4) different designs for scrolling using two (2) different people, and write up a report on the results. Note that this assignment is quite similar to Homework 1, but we have increased the number of technologies and decreased the number of people you need to do.

Scrolling Techniques

Each student will choose four (4) different scrolling techniques. We hope that we can get good coverage of all of the kinds of scrolling techniques that are currently in use, with approximately the same number of people doing each one. If you have an “interesting” way of doing scrolling, please use that as one of your choices. The assignment of people to techniques will be in this GoogleDoc.

For example, here are some scrolling techniques we thought of that you can pick from:

Extra points on this assignment for doing a fifth or more techniques!

Everyone enter the techniques you will do here.

Participants

Every student should test two (2) people:

Extra points on this assignment for testing a third or more people!

Test Software

The professor and TA are creating a version of scrolling test software for the web. You will be able to run the software from any web-enabled device. The software by default will display pages full of content, and users will need to scroll down to find a link, and tap on the link. The page will then record the times. For your two people, use different orders. (If you do extra techniques or extra people, then still have everyone do all the techniques, with different orders for the different people.) Note that it only takes a little over a minute to run each person for one technique through the whole test.

Run the scrolling experiment software
(Please let the Professor know of any bugs or issues with the software.)

Make sure the participants read the instructions on the first few pages, so they know where to click—the links are (purposely) not obvious.

Be sure to run your device so the longer dimension is horizontal. That is, it should be wider than it is tall, also called “Landscape” orientation—sideways for phones. If you are using a regular computer, make the browser window be so that at least a little scrolling is needed for all of the pages of the experiment—you should go through the experiment once to make sure.

When the test is done, the software will display the results, which you should copy and paste into the class’s GoogleDoc form, and also use the results in your own analysis for your report.

Paste your results into this form on GoogleDoc.

Preference and Demographic Questionnaire

You should create a simple (paper) questionnaire to give each of your subjects (including yourself!) to be filled out at the end after doing all the tasks. It should ask basic demographic information (see below), experience with computers and experience with the devices and scrolling techniques you are using. Then, you should have question(s) about their preferences and why. You need to include a blank copy of the questionnaire with your report so we can see what you asked.

Report

The deliverable for this homework is a written report. We expect it to be maybe about 3–4 pages (not including figures or the copy of the questionnaire), single-spaced in TimesRoman 12 point font. Print this report and turn it in before class on the due data. Be sure your name is on your report! The report should have the following sections: