Welcome back, everybody. In this video, I'd like to give you a quick overview of the assignment we'll be doing where you'll be applying the cognitive walkthrough method. What you'll be doing is applying this method to a scenario that we are going to give you for a particular user interface. Now let's review briefly what the cognitive walkthrough consists of. Of course, if you want, you can go back and revisit the video we did for cognitive walkthroughs to get more details, but I'm going to hit the highlights from that video. So a cognitive walkthrough is a method for evaluating a user interface without users. It focuses on first-time use. That is, it doesn't presume people are expert users of this system. It assumes somebody's coming up and trying it. They have knowledge of the basic task. They have general knowledge of how to use this interface. You can presume all those things. But they don't particularly know how to use this specific interface. The cognitive walktthrough method is task oriented. And what that means is it requires you to have a well worked out task or set of tasks that you want to test. And for each of those tasks, the walk through scenario, that is the specific set of actions, the specific sequence f actions somebody has to take to do this task in this interface. And so you're going to walk through that walkthrough scenario with the interface. And as you're doing it, you're going to keep in mind this fundamental question. Will users be able to follow this scenario? Can you tell a story that is believable that yes users would understand what it is that they have to do and how to do it? And as I alluded to already, you have to be aware of user capabilities. So you have to understand, for example, that the people who are using this know how to use a touch screen interface or know how to use a tablet. Or know how to use a Windows or a Mac interface, or whatever it is. And that they understand the basic task domain. Okay, so what is the specific procedure for a cognitive walkthrough? So again, you're going to walk through each action in your scenario. And you're going to try to tell a story of why the user will and can do it. And specifically, there are four critical questions you keep in mind, you ask yourself as you are doing this, for each action. Will users be trying to produce the right outcome? That is, does the user understand that this step is necessary to reach their goal? And so an example that I gave in the video on cognitive walkthroughs is what if you have to save your document? So the first thing I asked is, will users know that they actually need to save their document periodically? If you came from the world of everything being on a desktop computer using, let's say, Microsoft Office products, then you know you have to save. On the other hand, if the way you started using a computer is with Google Docs, for example, I never have to save, it's done automatically. So if users need to save their document, you have to ask yourself, will users know that, that they're trying to do that? The second question is, will users see the correct action they need in order to produce the outcome? So this gets at visibility, are the controls visible, can they even notice them? The third question, then, is will users recognize that this is the right action they need to take? Or, and this is the thing that you can ask, are they likely to confuse this action with another action? For example, are the labels that you use confusing or ambiguous or overlapping? And then finally, will users understand the feedback they get? That is, if they take an action, even if it is the right action that is moving them toward their goal, does the system give clear enough feedback that they understand it, and they know they're making progress toward their goal? So those are the four questions that you keep in mind as you step through and consider each action in the scenario. So let's talk a little bit about the details of the assignment that you're going to do. Well, I'm going to have you do this assignment in the context of an interface for trip planning for a transit system here where I live. So this system lets you plan bus and light rail trips around the metropolitan area of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota. And we have a particular task that is the focus for this assignment. And so I'll just read through this and, of course, this is in the assignment Instructions as well. After an early morning class at Keller Hall on the University of Minnesota Campus, Stacey wants to catch a bus to meet a friend at Great Harvest Bakery in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis. Class ends at 9:30 and she'll be ready to leave right after class. She prefers a direct connection, that is, no transfers from one bus to another. However, of course she's willing to transfer if it will get her to her destination significantly quicker. And if she does transfer, she would prefer to do so in downtown Minneapolis. And she also will want to see a map that shows exactly where to walk if she has to make the transfer. So that is the task. Now we also are, obviously, going to give you the scenario. And the way we are going to give you the scenario, which is the set of steps you need to perform to accomplish this task in the interface, is we're going to show you a set of screens that we took from the metro transit trip planner. And we've annotated each screen with the action you have to take to perform a particular step in the sequence of actions that will let you complete the task. Okay, so you have the task, you have a set of screens annotated with the specific actions you'll take, and that comprises the scenario. Now the detail of what you should do when you do the cognitive walkthrough is you're going to walk through this scenario with our user interface that we provided for you. You should examine each screen, consider the indicated action that is to be taken, like clicking here or selecting this, and try to determine whether a first time user of the trip planner would be able to perform the action. And you are going to produce a table whose rows look like what I show you here. You're going to have three columns, one where you, for each problem you find you're going to indicated the screen that the problem occurred on. The question from the cognitive walkthrough that let's you notice this problem, and a brief description of the problem. So in the example I gave here, I said on screen one I noticed a problem when I considered question two, which got to visibility of controls. And the description of the problem is, well, this screen contains a lot of information, so users may not notice the plan your trip link, which is what they needed to click on. Now, I have to say this is not a super convincing or compelling problem, but it illustrates the format of what we want. The screen the problem occurred on, the question from the cognitive walkthrough procedure that lets you notice the problem, and a brief description of the problem. Now when I did my walkthrough, I found nine pretty significant problems. And by pretty significant, I meant they're pretty obvious as I went through. And also I think they're pretty likely that a user would encounter this and find this to be a bit of an obstacle as they were trying to complete the task. A place where they could be confused. A place where they would have to think. A place where they might get off the right path. And for full credit, you will need to find at least five of these. And that means, when you're assignment is peer accessed, that's how this will be done, that's how it will be evaluated. You will be evaluated as to whether you have found at least five of the problems that I found, and gave good explanations of what the problem is. You'll see that when you do the peer assessments and you follow through the rubric. So that is the overview of the cognitive walkthrough assignment. I hope you enjoy the chance to start practicing and applying this powerful procedure.
