Subject: “Systems Analysis and Design”
Requirement: Chapter 9 User Interface Design Mini-case 2
Reference: page 360 in the 5th edition “Systems Analysis and Design”
Minimum of two pages double spaced content to discuss the topic.
Include a title page and a reference page with at least two outside references.
Use APA formatting for the title page and the reference page
Mini-case 2
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2. The members of a systems development project team
have gone out for lunch together, and as often happens,
the conversation has turned to work. The team has been
working on the development of the user interface design,
and so far, work has been progressing smoothly. The
team should be completing work on the interface prototypes
early next week. A combination of storyboards and
language prototypes has been used in this project. The
storyboards depict the overall structure and flow of the
system, but the team developed language prototypes of
the actual screens because they felt that seeing the actual
screens would be valuable for the users.
Chris (the youngest member of the project team): I
read an article last night about a really cool way to
evaluate a user interface design. It’s called usability
testing, and it’s done by all the major software vendors.
I think we should use it to evaluate our interface design.
Heather (system analyst): I’ve heard of that, too, but
isn’t it really expensive?
Mark (project manager): I’m afraid it is expensive, and
I’m not sure we can justify the expense for this project.
Chris: But we really need to know that the interface
works. I thought this usability testing technique would
help us prove we have a good design.
Amy (systems analyst): It would, Chris, but there are
other ways, too. I assumed we’d do a thorough walkthrough
with our users and present the interface to them
at a meeting. We can project each interface screen so
that the users can see it and give us their reaction. This
is probably the most efficient way to get the users’
response to our work.
Heather: That’s true, but I’d sure like to see the users
sit down and work with the system. I’ve always learned
a lot by watching what they do, seeing where they get
confused, and hearing their comments and feedback.
Ryan (systems analyst): It seems to me that we’ve put
so much work into this interface design that all we
really need to do is review it ourselves. Let’s just make
a list of the design principles we’re most concerned
about and check it ourselves to make sure we’ve followed
them consistently. If we have, we should be fine.
We want to get moving on the implementation, you
know.
Mark: These are all good ideas. It seems like we’ve
all got a different view of how to evaluate the interface
design. Let’s try and sort out the technique that is best
for our project.
Develop a set of guidelines that can help a project
team like the one discussed here select the most appropriate
interface evaluation technique for their project.
