AMBO UNIVERSITY WOLISO CAMPUS

SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATICS

DEPARTEMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT OF HUMEAN COMPUTER INTERACTIONS

TITLE: EVALUATION TECHNIQUES

NAME ID/NO

ABDISA MULGETA………………………..002/10
 Evaluation Techniques
Evaluation is a methodological area that is closely related to, but distinguishable from more traditional
social research. Evaluation utilizes many of the same methodologies used in traditional social research,
but because evaluation takes place within a political and organizational context, it requires group skills,
management ability, political dexterity, sensitivity to multiple stakeholders and other skills that social
research in general does not rely on as much. Here we introduce the idea of evaluation and some of the
major terms and issues in the field.

Evaluation is a process that critically examines a program. It involves collecting and analyzing
information about a program's activities, characteristics, and outcomes. Its purpose is to make
judgments about a program, to improve its effectiveness, and/or to inform programming
decisions

Evaluation

 tests usability and functionality and acceptability of an interactive system

 occurs in laboratory, field and/or in collaboration with users
 evaluates both design and implementation
 should be considered at all stages in the design life cycle

Goals of Evaluation

 assess extent of system functionality

 assess effect of interface on user
 identify specific problem

Evaluating Designs

Cognitive Walkthrough

Heuristic Evaluation

Review-based evaluation

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 Cognitive Walkthrough

 evaluates design on how well it supports user in learning task

 usually performed by expert in cognitive psychology
 expert ‘walks though’ design to identify potential problems using psychological
principles
 forms used to guide analysi
 For each task walkthrough considers
 what impact will interaction have on user?
 what cognitive processes are required?
 what learning problems may occur?

• Analysis focuses on goals and knowledge: does the design lead the user to generate the correct
goal

Heuristic Evaluation

 Proposed by Nielsen and Molich.

 usability criteria (heuristics) are identified
 design examined by experts to see if these are violated
 Example heuristics
– system behaviour is predictable
– system behaviour is consistent

– feedback is provided

– Heuristic evaluation `debugs' design

Review-based evaluation

 Results from the literature used to support or refute parts of design.

 Care needed to ensure results are transferable to new design.
 Model-based evaluation
 Cognitive models used to filter design options e.g. GOMS prediction of user
performance.

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  Design rationale can also provide useful evaluation information

Evaluating through user Participation

Laboratory studies

• Advantages:

 specialist equipment available

 uninterrupted environment

• Disadvantages:

 lack of context
 difficult to observe several users cooperating

• Appropriate

 if system location is dangerous or impractical for constrained single user systems to allow
controlled manipulation of us

Field Studies

• Advantages:

 natural environment
 context retained (though observation may alter it)
 longitudinal studies possible

• Disadvantages:

 distractions
 noise

• Appropriate

 where context is crucial for longitudinal studies

Evaluating Implementations

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Requires an artefact:

simulation, prototype, full implementation

Experimental evaluation

 controlled evaluation of specific aspects of interactive behaviour

 evaluator chooses hypothesis to be tested
 a number of experimental conditions are considered which differ only in the value of
some controlled variable.

• changes in behavioural measure are attributed to different condition

Experimental factors

• Subjects

 who
 representative, sufficient sample

• Variables

 things to modify and measure

• Hypothesis

 what you’d like to show

• Experimental design

 how you are going to do I

Variables

 independent variable (IV) characteristic changed to produce different conditions e.g.

interface style, number of menu items
 dependent variable (DV) characteristics measured in the experiment e.g. time taken,
number of errors.

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 Hypothesis

 prediction of outcome
 framed in terms of IV and DV e.g. “error rate will increase as font size decreases”
 null hypothesis:
 states no difference between conditions
 aim is to disprove this e.g. null hyp. = “no change with font size”

Experimental design

• within groups design

 each subject performs experiment under each condition.

 transfer of learning possible
 less costly and less likely to suffer from user variation

. • between groups design

 each subject performs under only one condition

 no transfer of learning
 more users required
 variation can bias results

Analysis of data

• Before you start to do any statistics:

 look at data
 save original data

• Choice of statistical technique depends on

 type of data
 information required

• Type of data

 discrete

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  finite number of values
 continuous
 any value

Experimental studies on groups

More difficult than single-user experiments Problems with:

 subject groups
 choice of task
 data gathering
The task
 must encourage cooperation perhaps involve multiple channels options:
 creative task e.g. ‘write a short report on …’
 decision games e.g. desert survival task
 control task e.g. ARKola bottling plan
 Data gathering
 several video cameras + direct logging of application
problems:
 synchronization
 sheer volume! one solution:
 record from each perspectiv
Analysis N.B. vast variation between groups solutions:
 within groups experiments
 micro-analysis (e.g., gaps in speech)
 anecdotal and qualitative analysis look at interactions between group and media
controlled experiments may `waste' resources
Data gathering
several video cameras + direct logging of application problems:
 synchronization
 sheer volume! one solution:
 record from each perspectiv

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 Field studies

Experiments dominated by group formation Field studies more realistic: distributed cognition
work studied in context real action is situated action physical and social environment both crucial
Contrast: psychology

 controlled experiment sociology and anthropology

 open study and rich data

Observational Methods
Think Aloud
Cooperative evaluation Protocol
analysis Automated analysis
Post-task walkthrough
Think Aloud
 user observed performing task
 user asked to describe what he is doing and why, what he thinks is happening etc.
Advantages
 simplicity
 requires little expertise
 can provide useful insight
 can show how system is actually use
Disadvantages
 subjective
 selective
 act of describing may alter task performance
Cooperative evaluation
• variation on think aloud
• user collaborates in evaluation
• both user and evaluator can ask each other questions throughout
• Additional advantages
 less constrained and easier to use

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 user is encouraged to criticize system
 clarification possible
Protocol analysis
• paper and pencil
 cheap, limited to writing speed
• audio
 good for think aloud, difficult to match with other protocols
• video
 accurate and realistic, needs special equipment, obtrusive
• computer logging
 automatic and unobtrusive, large amounts of data difficult to analyze
• user notebooks
 coarse and subjective, useful insights, good for longitudinal studies
• Mixed use in practice.
• audio/video transcription difficult and requires skill.
• Some automatic support tools available
automated analysis
Workplace project
• Post task walkthrough
– user reacts on action after the event
– used to fill in intention
• Advantages
– analyst has time to focus on relevant incidents
– avoid excessive interruption of task
• Disadvantages
– lack of freshness
– may be post-hoc interpretation of event
Query Techniques
1 Interviews
2 Questionnaire
1 Interviews

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 • analyst questions user on one-to -one basis usually based on prepared questions
• informal, subjective and relatively cheap
• Advantages
can be varied to suit context
– issues can be explored more fully
– can elicit user views and identify unanticipated problems
• Disadvantages
– very subjective
– time consuming
2 Questionnaires
• Set of fixed questions given to users
• Advantages
– quick and reaches large user group
– can be analyzed more rigorously
• Disadvantages

– less flexible
– less probin

Conclution

In this paper, we have conceptualized and presented evaluation techniques that emerged
during an action design research study which was carried out in order to track pilot
projects applying a new project management methodology and contrast them with
reference projects to find indicators of the effect of the methodology. The framework
represents four distinct approaches to project evaluation from classical and specific
success criteria to benchmarking against other projects.

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Different kinds of evaluation require different time, effort, number of people involved,
and equipment. It is important to consider whether a certain kind of techniques is
appropriate for the stage of development.

Aim of evaluation is to test the functionality and usability of the design and to identify
and rectify any problems. A design can be evaluated before any implementation work has
started, to minimize the cost of early design errors.

References

Anand, G., & Kodali, R. (2008). Benchmarking the benchmarking models.

Benchmarking: An International Journal, 15(3), 257-291. Andersen, E. S. (2010). Are we
getting any better? Comparing project management in the years 2000 and 2008. Project
Management Journal, 41(4), 4-16. Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time
and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria.
International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), 337-342. Axelos. (2015). PRINCE2
Agile. Norwich: TSO (The Stationery Office), part of Williams Lea. Befani, B.,
Ledermann, S., & Sager, F. (2007). Realistic Evaluation and QCA: Conceptual Parallels
and an Empirical Application. Evaluation, 13(2), 171-192. Bertalanffy, L. v. (1956).

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