The reading in Ch 12 describes the evaluation process, it is a fundamentally important part of the design process. Usability has become an important aspect within HCI now that the technological advances of man-kind have taken a major roll in the development in our planet’s technological forefront. There is more than one evaluation method, depending where the technology in question stands in development. Summative evaluations are done after a product is completed. This is to help the user understand more about the product, as well as finding ways to help make the product even better than it was prior. A prime example of this would be a computer processor. The formative evaluation method is done during the creation of a product. This is intended to check to see if the product still meets the requirements of the user, as well as the requirements of the needs of the person. Usability testing is done by an evaluator, and it is to his discression as to where and how the product is tested. It is important during usability testing to have the user which intends to use the product, test the product. Field studies are done in public places with random individuals.
The evaluation process of HCI is obviously one that is important, not only to the user, but for further technological advances.
June 6, 2008 at 9:25 am
Evan, I think that your summary was adaquate for the chapter, but I was really missing any sense of a response. I want to understand from the standpoint about why you feel it is important. Maybe what personal experiences have you had with evaluation or products that obviously hadn’t been evaluated well. How do you feel about the distinction between field studies and usability testing, etc.?
June 6, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I see your point, and after carefully thinking about what you meant for a while, I realized it was in front of me the whole time. For instance, I am getting rather sick of Windows PC’s in general. Microsoft did a poor job evaluating the user after XP, because XP was done so well. Vista blew itself out of the water, everyone knows this. The creators at Microsoft failed miserably at creating a sense of “ease of use,” for their new operating system because they assumed that everyone would have previous knowledge from XP or even an earlier edition, that could have been prevented with valuable information that could have been collected with a formative evaluation survey during the development of Vista. Now, if Microsoft was smart, they would do some summative evaluations/research, and find that not only is the back end of the system irrelevant to the majority of consumers, but many of those consumers lack the knowledge to do anything with it. Microsoft has always tried to ‘allow the user to be in full control.’ Stupid. Not Microsoft, but the consumer. Literally. The majority of consumers do not have the knowledge to be allowed to control such a machine, which is why many claim ‘their computer is broken.’ Apple will dominate the next few years in our technology era because they implimented active programming from the begining. Macs can easily do whatever a PC does, they just don’t allow such ease of change within important system files, the way any program in Windows can easily do.
June 6, 2008 at 1:20 pm
And this is why my next computer will be a Mac.
June 9, 2008 at 9:25 am
I think that is a fair assessment of Microsoft, but don’t let Apple off to easy. They are not without their share of usability problems. It essentially comes down to tradeoffs. No system built will ever be perfect.