CW-33956

Course Work Answer Book

UNIVERSITY COURSE WORK 2021 / 2022

REGISTRATION NUMBER VU-BIT-2109-0940
Title of The Program (eg BBA, BSC, BPH, BSWA) BIT
Bachelor of Information Technology
Department Other Depts in Faculty of Science and Technology
Faculty Faculty of Science and Technology
Year Of study (YrI , YrII, YrIII, or YrIV) 2
Module Code and Name 2111 FST
Human Computer Interaction
Semester 1

Retake: Yes ☐ No ☒ (Tick whichever is applicable)

Date of Course Work Mon Oct 10 2022 12:43:55 GMT+0300 (East Africa Time)

DIRECTIONS TO CANDIDATES (Turn to page FOR USE BY EXAMINERS ONLY

ii for more instructions). Question Internal External
1. Leave margin blank. Number Examiner Examiner
2. Begin each answer on a fresh page.
3. Write the number of each question and
theCandidate's Number at the top of each page.

4. Write the numbers of the questionswhich you

have attempted, with subsections where
necessary, in the spacesprovided below

TOTAL

NUMBER OF QUESTIONS you have answered in the order in which you have written them

Page |i @Victoria university Kampala Uganda P.T.O

 CW-33956
How and where should I submit my Course Work script?
Every student will be required to submit their Course Work via VClass Students Portal E.g. you go to
www.vclass.ac and login, to your account, then on the left sidebar menu click on Course Work.
Under Course Work you will see the following: -
a) Instructions for that particular Course Work with time required to finish your Course Work
as per instructions,
a) A student will be required to download the question paper and the answer sheet provided by
the university within the same module Course Work, or a student can be required to attempt
structured questions within the system depending on how the Course Work was set.
b) Submission of answered questions is done,
c) Student is required to click to consent to show that the answered Course Work belongs to
them.
d) Note that if Course Work is for download, a student will be required to download the
question paper and answer sheet, do their Course Work within the given stipulated time.
e) Required to scan and upload back the answered booklet through the same portal as per
format available.
f) Course Work uploaded will directly be received by the Registry department.
g) Students here are required to use VClass e-Learning systemfor all Course Work and for any
failure they can contact the Registry department for guidance.
h) No late submission will be accepted.
Avoid any malpractice because this will attract severe penalties such as invalidating the
answered script whose consequences will attract retakes.

P a g e | ii @Victoria university Kampala Uganda P.T.O

 CW-33956
Question one
Norman’s model of interaction describes interaction in terms of goals and actions of the user where
execution and evaluation are the actions being taken under consideration by the user. However, this
model only considers the system as far as the interface therefore it only concentrates on the Users’
view of the interaction and does not deal with the System’s communication through the interface
which makes the interaction less realistic.

The Abowd and Beale model (Interaction Framework) addresses this problem by including the
system explicitly by breaking the interaction into four major components namely; the System, the
User, the Input and the Output.

Each component has its own language in addition to the User’s Task Language which describes the
psychological attributes of the domain relevant to the user state and the System’s Core Language
which describes the computational attributes of the system state described in the Norman’s model
of interaction.

In this framework, the interface formed by the Input and the Output sits between the User and the
System.

The interaction framework is an extension of the Norman model with the first two steps of the
interaction cycle being Evaluation and Execution. However, the interaction cycle in the interaction
framework is divided into four steps where the first two steps in the cycle accomplish the execution
phase and the next two steps the evaluation phase of the cycle. Each step corresponds to a
translation from the one component to another.

The translations involved in the interaction are:

 Articulation.
 Performance.
 Presentation.
 Observation.

Articulation: The cycle begins with the Users’ formulation of a goal and a task to achieve the goal.
The task is then manipulated within the Input Language. Manipulation of the machine can only be
done through the input. Articulation can be judged in terms of coverage from tasks to input relative
to the ease with which the translation is done.

Performance: the results of the input are translated to stimulus for the System so as to assess if the
translated input language can reach many parts of the system as possible. The Input Language is
then translated into Core Language as operations to be performed by the System. Once the state
transition has occurred within the system, the execution state of the interaction is complete and the
system transforms itself, as described by the operation from the Input.

Presentation: The system acquires a new state which must be communicated to the user by
translating the system responses to the transition into stimuli for the Output Component. The
current values of the system attributes are rendered as concepts or features of the Output.

Observation: The user then observes the output and assess the results of the interaction relative to
the original goal. Here, the user must interpret the output to evaluate what has happened, the

Page |3 @Victoria university Kampala Uganda P.T.O

 CW-33956
response from the output is translated to stimuli for the user which triggers assessment ending the
evaluation cycle hence the interactive cycle.

The interaction framework can be used to judge the overall usability of an interactive system
through analyzing the success of the four translation steps in achieving a users’ goal.

Unlike in the Norman model, the Abowd and Beale model can be used to monitor the simplicity and
ease of articulation, whether the translation language of the input reached as many states of the
system as possible, determine if the system can communicate its changes state to the output with
limited expressiveness of the output devices and output can be assessed as to whether it has
translated the system responses to stimuli which satisfy user expectations.

Question two
Interaction styles are a collection of interface objects and associated techniques from which an
interaction designer can choose when designing the user interaction components of an interface.
They provide a behavioral view of how the user communicates with the system. There are a number
of common interface styles including;

 Command line interface: this is an interaction style that provides a means of expressing
instructions to the computer directly through usage of function keys, single characters,
abbreviations or whole word commands. This interaction style can offer direct access to the
system functionality and can be, combined to apply a number of tools to the same data.
Pros:
 Can be used as a supplementary to system’s functionality for experienced users.
 Capable of having a large number of options for parameters that will vary its
behavior in many ways.
Cons:
 Difficulty in use and learning.
 Confusion which increases the overhead of learning commands since most
commands vary across various systems.
 Menus: here, the set of options available to the user is displayed on the screen, and selected
using the mouse, or numeric or alphabetic keys.
Pros:
 Less demanding for users since options are available to the user.
 One can rely on recognition rather than recall.
Cons:
 Recognition must be aided by meaningful and logic grouping.
 Inaccessibility as some features aren’t accessible at the top layer of the menu.
 Form-fills and spreadsheets: these are used for data entry and data retrieval applications.
Here, a user is presented with a display resembling a paper form with slots to fill in. these
were used for routine, clerical work or for tasks that require a great deal of data entry.
Pros.
 Simplifies data entry.
 Can guide a user via predefined rules.

Page |4 @Victoria university Kampala Uganda P.T.O

 CW-33956
 Shortens learning in that the fields are predefined and need only to be recognized.
Cons.
 Consumes screen space.
 Usually sets the scene for rigid formalization of the business process.
 Point and click interfaces: here, a user communicates with the computer by simply pointing
at an object and click on it using a mouse button or touchpad. This interface style overlaps in
the use of buttons.
Pros.
 Can be extensively used in touch screen information systems where it mostly
combined with the menu driven interface.
 Not tied to only mouse-based interfaces.
 Direct manipulation: this allows users to pick objects of interest represented as
distinguishable objects in the user interface and manipulate them in a direct fashion. This
interface style is known for its visibility of the object of interest, rapid, reversible,
incremental actions and replacement of complex language syntax by direct manipulation of
the object of interest.
Pros.
 Visually presents task components.
 Encourages exploration.
 High subjective satisfaction
Cons.
 May be difficult to program.
 Not suitable for small graphic displays.
 Spatial and visual representation is not always preferable.
 Anthropomorphic interfaces: these deal with natural language interfaces that recognize
gestures, facial expressions and speech.
Pros
 Promises flexible and easy communication with computers
Cons.
 Understanding of human communication is necessary.
 Hand writing as typing is associated with problems of incorrect spellings, illegibility
among others.

Page |5 @Victoria university Kampala Uganda P.T.O