UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2014/2015
ORDINARY EXAMINATION FOR THE BACHELOR OF SCIENCE
IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BIT 2308 HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION – (DISTANCE
LEARNING)
DATE: DECEMBER, 2014 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question ONE and any other TWO
QUESTION ONE (COMPULSORY) 30 MARKS
a) Describe briefly three approaches to task analysis. [9 Marks]
b) Explain the concept of “user-centered design” [8 Marks]
c) Describe the HCI usability engineering lifecycle. [10 Marks]
d) Differentiate between Interaction Design versus Interface Design [3 Marks]
QUESTION TWO (20 MARKS)
a) Differentiate a verbal metaphor from an interface metaphor.
Giving an example for each. [4 Marks]
b) Explain the following styles of interaction between human and a computer
system, an advantage and disadvantage for each. [6 Marks]
i). Menus and navigation.
ii). Command entry.
c) Discuss the disciplines that contribute to HCL [10 Marks]
QUESTION 3 (20 MARKS)
a) Explain the User Support characteristics / features required in the context
of HCI [8 Marks]
b) Using an appropriate diagram, illustrate the HCI design process. [10 Marks]
c) Explain briefly two fundamental interaction styles/ interfaces used HCI [2 Marks]
QUESTION FOUR (20 MARKS)
a) State and briefly explain the methods that have been used to represent information at
the interface giving an example of each. [6 marks]
b) (i) Define the term “perception”. [2 marks]
(ii) State and briefly explain the assumptions of the two theories of perception.
[6
marks]
c). Give three reasons why evaluation is important in systems design. [6 marks]
QUESTION FIVE (20 MARKS
a) The human brain is limited in capacity. It is important to design user interfaces
which takes into account the attention and memory constraints of the users.
Explain the design techniques that can be used to achieve this [8 Marks]
b) Define the following principles that support usability as used in HCI [6 Marks]
i). Learnability
ii). Flexibility
iii).Robustness
c) Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a
product by testing it on users. Explain why Usability testing is important in the context of HCI [6 Marks]
