Bahria University, Lahore Campus

Department of Computer Sciences

Lab Journal 05
(Fall 2020)

Course: Human Computer Interaction Lab Date:

Course Code: SEL - 320 Max Marks: 20
Faculty’s Name: Lab Engineer:

Name: Mohammad Jasim Waqar Enroll No: 03-135172-055

Objective(s) :

 Identification of User Objectives

 Comparison of Various Products
 Understanding of UI Experience & its Importance
 Understanding of Usability Design Goals
 Concepts review of Software Requirements Engineering
 Features extraction and its mapping with usability goals

Usability and User Experience

What is usability? One distinction is easy; the difference between useful and useable. Useful
means that the system does what it should. Usable means that it is easy to do it. But there is no
usability without usefulness and no usefulness without usability.

User Experience Design” is often used interchangeably with terms such as “User Interface
Design” and “Usability”. However, while usability and user interface (UI) design are important
aspects of UX design, they are subsets of it.

A difficulty is what is usable to one user may not be to another user. Consider the command line
interface for controlling the operating system. It is very usable by system administrators, but
unusable by mortals like me. So usability should always be considered in context with the user.

Let us try to compare how well current UI achieve their usability goals. Also, we should
delineate what particular usability concerns there are for mobile devices and apps.
Usability Goals

Preece, Rogers and Sharp (Interaction Design) propose 6 usability goals:

 Effective: effective to use

 Efficient: efficient to use
 Utility: have good utility
 Learnable: easy to learn
 Memorable: easy to remember how to use
 Safe: safe to use

Some other usability goals added:

 Ergonomics: especially for smartphones, can be used in different environments…

 Accessibility: can be used by many different people, even people with disabilities.

The above usability goals are pragmatic or operational goals. Preece, Rogers and Sharp
(Interaction Design) propose that designers evaluate how well a design achieves these usability
goals by asking questions directed at the design. The questions should not be general, such as “Is
the design effective?” Rather, the question should be more specific, such as “Can users of a filing
systems understand the categories and use them to find information?”

Effectiveness and utilities refer to usefulness.

Effectiveness is an overall measure of how well the system performs. “Can users use the system
to do the work they need to do?” 

Efficiency is more akin to usable and can refer to the time required to use the interface and the
likelihood of making errors using the system. Amazon’s single button shopping is an example of
design driven by efficiency. ” How quickly can users perform the tasks?” 

Utility is a measure of the correct functionality and breadth of functionality. Most good software
is driven by utility, for example word processors have nearly all the features required to compose
and format text documents. “Does the system provide all the functionality that users’ needs?”

Because the computer is a new cognitive tool, learnability has been a concern of UI designers.
Designers have been plagued with trying to design “familiar and natural interfaces” that can be
learned without reading a manual.   A measure of how easy users find it to accomplish tasks
without prior experience with the design?
Memorable is how easy is it to remember how to use an interface after the user has experience
with the system. Memorable is related to learnability and has generated GUIs with menus and
icons, but the menu names and icons images need to be appropriate for them to be memorable.
“What kind of support does the system have for remembering how to do tasks, especially
infrequent tasks?”

Safety is protecting the users from dangerous errors, for example losing all the user’s data or
protecting the user’s confidential information. Safety can also refer to how users recover from
errors. Safety is a little considered usability goal. An example of designing by safety is not
putting the delete button next to the save button. Another example, is providing users various
ways to recover from errors, both by reverting to a priority state or progressing the system to the
correct state. For example in a word processor, the write can use control-z to correct, back
button, or retype to correct mistakes. “What kind of errors can users make and how can they
recover from the mistake?”

A little thought of usability is ergonomics. “Is the device physically safe and comfortable to
use?” I believe that new devices, smart phones and tablets, should drive designers to consider
ergonomics. For example the designers should ask, “Can the user perform the operations in the
work environment?” “Can the user press buttons wearing gloves?”

Consider some interfaces and how they address these usability goals:

 Word processor
 Operating system interface (the alternative between linux command line interface and
Windows control panel)
 Spread sheet software
 Programming languages IDE
 Shopping Websites

Spend some time identifying interface elements that successfully address usability goals and
failures in achieving usability goals.

What pragmatic usability goals are important for mobile devices and especially our apps?

 Learnability – many apps on the device without help documentation and users generally
do not have time.
 Efficient – app user generally do not have time to perform complex task.
 Ergonomic – Mobile devices are handheld and have small screens.
Lab Tasks:

Technology NETWORK Rear Camera Versions Fingerprint voice Shortcut

recognition menus

Usability Efficiency Effectiveness learnability Safety ergonomics. Memorable

Goals

GALAXY 2G Android 1.0 X X X

NOTE
8 MP
GALAXY (1080p HD) Android 2.1 X X X
NOTE 2
2G/3G
GALAXY
supportive
13 MP (1080p Android 4.1 X ✓ ✓
NOTE 3 in 60fps)
GALAXY Android 4.4 ✓ ✓ ✓
NOTE 4 16 MP Smart
OIS
(4K at 30fps)
GALAXY Android 5.0 ✓ ✓ ✓
NOTE 5
GALAXY 2 MP Android 6.0 ✓ ✓ ✓
NOTE 7 f/1.7, Dual
3G/4G Pixel
supportive autofocus
GALAXY 12 MP Wide- Android 7.1 ✓ ✓ ✓
NOTE 8 angle f/1.7
GALAXY Dual Android 8.0 ✓ ✓ ✓
NOTE 9 12 MP Wide-
angle f/1.5-2.4
GALAXY Triple 12 MP  Android 8.1 ✓ ✓ ✓
NOTE 10 Wide
angle f/1.5-2.4
GALAXY Quad 12 MP  Android 9.0 ✓ ✓ ✓
NOTE 10+ Wide
angle f/1.5-2.4
Task 1: You are required to select any of three devices (preferably mobile phones) of
same ancestor with various generations, like is the case of Apple’s IPhone to kick off with
bringing smart phone revolution by introducing IPhone 3 then later generations came up with
4, 4S, 5, 5S, 6, 6S and so on with their different variants. You are required to make
comparison study of newer gadgets with their ancestors to clearly illicit difference in features
and functionalities each offered and enhancements being done in each modern version with
users’ satisfactory ratings and remarks overall and specific to each feature. Also mark
objectives intended to meet before incorporating these features incorporate Usability Goals.
Task 2: For the given scenario in lab, you are required to understand the users’
perspective and extract features out of the scenario, then draw a table and map those
features aligned with usability goal and also state reason, how come that
requirement/feature satisfies that specified usability goal and manages accessibility for all.

Scenario:

You have been mandated to perform an activity in which you can browse any web application or
look for a mobile application for example, Youtube, Soundcloud etc., and build various scenarios
pertaining to users’ activities on this web application / mobile app; Now, extract features
provided by that web application / mobile application and identify usability goals mapped
against each specified feature. You are free to select web application of your own choice.

Sr Usability EasyPaisa JazzCash

Goals
Features
1 Safety Uses Key OTP which is difficult Uses Random Number OTP
to crack by the unauthorize which is not that difficult to
persons like hackers etc. Which crack by the unauthorize persons
will help to secure data. like hackers etc. But this make
secure your data from small
hacking attacks
2 Efficiency Uses short Image menus which Uses menus with text which
help user to easily understand define the functionality of the
what option will do what menu
3 Utility Provide multiple functionalities Provide services like money
like send receive money, send and receive, bank transfer
easyload, Bank transfer services and facilitate user from all these
and many more from which user functionalities.
can take benefits
4 Efficiency It performs send and receive It performs send and receive
money transactions in seconds, money transactions in seconds
which made it efficient to the which made it efficient to the
user. user.

Both EasyPaisa and Jazz cash applications are used to send and receive money all the Pakistan
and mostly they both have an interface from which user can easily understands is functionality
but somewhere it feels like EasyPaisa provide more satisfaction as compare to the JazzCash as
its interface follows many designing principles and Usability Goals. So these Usability help
people to trust on EasyPaisa App.
Lab Grading Sheet :

Max Obtained
Task Comments(if any)
Marks Marks
1. 10
2. 10
Total 20 Signature

Note : Attempt all tasks and get them checked by your instructor.