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

—————-

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.