UAN & Cognitive Walkthrough Exercise

Part II

Background

In this exercise you will perform a cognitive walkthrough on the Pluto Phone. You will be given a scenario involving the phone. You will:

• write a UAN description of the task(s)
• perform a cognitive walkthrough
• produce a report on your UAN and cognitive walkthrough.

Aims of this exercise

This is intended is intended to:

• provide you with further practise in writing UAN task descriptions and in doing cognitive walkthroughs,
• allow you to apply the feedback from your UAN / Cognitive Walkthrough Warmup exercise,
• enable you to compare anaytic and empirical evaluation techniques.

Resources

In addition to this exercise description, you will need:

• the Think-Aloud handout ,
• the UAN and Cognitive Walkthrough lecture notes,
• your UAN / Cognitive Walkthrough Warmup Exercise and Feedback.

What You Must Do

1. Read the scenario below.
2. Develop a UAN task description of the task described in the scenario. Your description should have at least two subtasks subordinate to the main task.
3. Perform a cognitive walkthrough using your task description.
4. Write up the results of your cognitive walkthrough, identifying the major usability problems you have uncovered in the analysis.
5. Write a short report (maximum one page) comparing Think Aloud And Cognitive Walkthrough evaluation methods. Your report should address these questions:
   • What are the costs and benefits of using Cognitive Walkthrough and Think Aloud?
   • When would you use one method as opposed to the other?
6. Submit your UAN task description, the results of your cognitive walkthrough and the comparative report as part of your HCI3 Design Exercise.

Due Date

This excercise is due on 20 April (the due date for the HCI3 Design Exercise).

The Scenario

Who

Jim is a lecturer in the Computing Science Department. Has an unshared office in Lilybank Gardens. He is an experienced computer user and longtime user of the University digital telephone exchange using a standard telephone. He has been using the Plutophone since it was installed in his office one week ago.

What and Why

Jim is in office. He has an appointment in Francis' office. Since Jim is expecting an important call and his secretary is off ill, he first redirects his phone to Francis' phone. Later, having returned to his office and not yet having received his important call, Jim cancels the redirection.

Goal

Ensure important call is received.

With

Using Pluto Phone. No manual available.

Notes

This is a group task. Try to share out the work so that the workload is balanced and so that, in so far as is possible, the division of work is different than on the warmup exercise.

You may try out the task on the Pluto Phone prototype if you're unsure of the phone's behaviour.

The actions in your UAN description are actions on the Pluto Phone. Time delays between subtasks can be added as comments, if desired.

Date of last revision: 5 January 1997