Reference no: EM132610312

Part 1: Direct Manipulation

Early computer systems relied on command-line interfaces to perform all actions. Today, the majority of systems use direct manipulation rather than a command-line interface. The goal of designing a direct manipulation interface is to make use of the system intuitive to the end user.

One industry that has been extremely successful designing intuitive direct manipulation inputs is the video game industry. Most game players are able to learn controls as they play a game and then apply the same controls to similar games. Rarely do they need to read a user manual.

Write a four- to five-page paper in which you:

Describe the three principles of direct manipulation and give examples as to how they are used in video game controls.

Analyze video game-type interfaces and discuss three reasons why video game-type interfaces would not be effective for real-world applications.

Describe at least three advantages of direct manipulation versus command line interfaces.

Evaluate direct manipulation and describe three problems with it.

Use at least three quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Part 2: User Frustration

The quality of the user experience is very important to the success of an application. In the early days of computing, users often experienced long delays since computing power was poor and networks had comparatively slow throughput. Modern systems have largely eliminated these delays due to increased network and computing power, yet users still report a high level of frustration.

Write a four- to five-page paper in which you:

Describe three reasons users are still frustrated with modern applications.

Suggest one method for reducing the frustrations for each of the reasons you supplied in Question 1.

Describe methods for determining if user frustration is caused by poor system design or from the natural frustration associated with learning a new software product.

Suggest at least three methods to reduce the frustrations among the disabled population and how this population can be better served.

Use at least three quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Part -3: Case Study - User Interfaces

Early user interfaces were designed with little or no consideration for the end user. This was largely due to technical and hardware limitations. The poor interface design required a specific skill set for users and limited the mass appeal of computers. Modern interfaces are much more user friendly. Theo Mandel has written about the golden rules of interface design. Read "The Golden Rules of User Interface Design [PDF]."

Write a four- to five-page paper in which you:

Describe three interfaces you interact with on a daily basis.

Analyze each interface you identified in Question one and assess how it adheres to Mandel's five golden rules.

Suggest two changes for each interface to achieve a more user-friendly design and justify your suggestion.

Provide three screenshots for each interface. Note: These screenshots should be labeled and appear in the appendix of the case study.

These pages are not included in the page requirement for the assignment.

Use at least three quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar websites do not qualify as quality resources.