HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION
LAB REPORT # 01
Submitted To:
Ma’am Iram Abdullah
Submitted By:
Wajeeha Anum
Reg No:
17-CS-077 (Section A)
Dated:
September 30th, 2020
Lab #01
BASIC HCI PRINCIPLES
Objectives:
• To identify the faults in current interfaces by applying basic rules of HCI.
• To apply Visibility, Feedback, Constraints and Consistency on different websites.
Software tools:
• None for this lab
Theory:
Basic design principles are Design principles
• Visibility
• Feedback
• Constraints
• Mapping
• Consistency
• Affordance
We will apply these on two different interfaces as a lab tasks.
Procedure:
Task:
Critically analyze the interface of with reference to the above mentioned factors.
a) Google Meet used for Conference Calling
b) HEC Website
Solution:
Google Meet used for Conference Calling:
This software developed by Google Inc. is a video conferencing software. It can be downloaded
and used from web, app, android and iOS platforms. Google Meet has the provision of having at
most 16 people on the video screen at a particular time. The provision for recording meetings for
further usage is also available here. It has integration with G-suite, Google Docs, Google Drive,
Google sheets and Google Notes.
Visibility • It has no background customization.
• It has phone video call and chat facility
but chat option is not properly visible it
can be easily missed
Feedback • Google meet has excellent feedback
whenever we press any button or use
any option it actually informs us about
our actions for example when we want
to mute our microphone it becomes red
and it stays black otherwise which is
very impressive.
Constraints • App download is required for video
calls it is not possible without app.
• It allows 60 minutes of video call
• Collaboration in terms of office
documents is not possible.
Mapping • Mapping of controls is very elegant and
it is according to standard a newbie can
easily learn and gets used to controls
very quickly.
Consistency • App is very consistent it uses the
standard and it doesn’t offer anything
which is inconsistent overall
everything is pretty neat and easy to
use.
Affordance • All the elements and symbols used in
app actually define themselves why
they are there for example the call
option mute option and cancel option
very well define that they are buttons
so affordance is very good
HEC Website:
The Higher education commission website which deals with almost all of the education system of
Pakistan. After carefully analyzing the website here are my views:
Visibility • HEC website is very well designed
when it comes to visibility as all of the
available pages and other necessary
information is very well documented
and presented.
Feedback • Website feedback is good but search
button is little misleading for example
if doesn’t type anything and press
search it doesn’t give out any response
which is strange.
• There are some links on website which
are broken and does not given any
response when we click on them.
Constraints • Website underperforms when large
number of requests are made so it
should be moved to bigger server
• There is no online means of degree
attestation we have to send the
documents via TCS and need to wait
they should use paperless environment
as a service as it is a big constraint
epically for engineers who are settled
abroad.
Mapping • Mapping of some elements is not good
especially the footer is book and header
is small which gives a very bad look to
overall website
Consistency • Some pages are very different than
other pages so consistency is not good
they should make the look of overall
website similar.
Affordance • All the elements and symbols used in
website actually define themselves
why they are there for example the call
option mute option and cancel option
very well define that they are buttons
so affordance is very good
Conclusion:
In this lab we evaluation different websites by keeping the basic principles of HCI in our mind and
wrote down our results after examining each principle.
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