UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE
IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
FULLTIME/PART TIME/ DISTANCE LEARNING
AUGUST 2017 TIME: 2 HOURS
Instructions
o Answer question ONE and any other TWO.
o Question One carry 30 marks, others 20 marks each.
QUESTION ONE. (COMPULSORY)
(a) Explain the following principles in HCI (6 Marks)
i. Affordance
ii. Usability
iii. Visibility
(b) Discuss three main goals of HCI. (3 Marks)
(c) Compare the constructivist and ecological theories of perception and give examples
of how each has influenced interface design. (4 marks)
(d) Describe, with the aid of a diagram, the Human Information Processing model.
(5 marks)
(e) Explain between knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head. (2 Marks)
(f) (i) Differentiate “recognition rather than recall” as used in HCI (2 marks)
(ii) Discuss areas in system design where ‘recognition’ is encouraged (2 Marks)
(iii) Discuss areas in system design where ‘recall’ is encouraged (2 Marks)
(g) Discuss any two metaphors used in the study of HCI and clearly show their
importance in system design. (4 marks)
QUESTION TWO
(a) What is the meaning of User-centered design? (2 Marks)
(b) Discuss audio and visual devices that are used in input and output devices.
(3 Marks)
(c) What is HOMERUN in reference to a usable website? (3 Marks)
(d) Describe two techniques for evaluation, highlighting their key points and the
differences between them (12 Marks)
QUESTION THREE
(a) Discuss any four interaction styles that are applicable in computing giving its
advantages and disadvantages. (12 Marks)
(b) Discuss KCA University website using Cognitive Task Analysis, GOMS
(8 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR
(a) An electricity power plant was redesigned so that the old system consisting of a
single large display screen which could be seen by all of a team of three operators was
replaced by individual workstation screens for operators. This worked well until there
was a problem which resulted in dangerous gases being released. The team of operators
had great difficulty in finding the source of the problem and deciding what to do.
Because they no longer have access to all the information, they have to spend time
explicitly co-ordinating their understanding of the situation by talking to each other.
Under the old system, the knowledge would be shared – one operator would know what
was happening with another’s area of the plant without explicit communication. Although
the team’s individual responsibilities would still have been clearly divided, the
knowledge of the system would be shared.
(i) What is distributed cognition? (2 Marks)
(ii) How could the new system of individual workstations be modified to make better use
of distributed cognition?
(11 Marks)
(b) Explain any four facilities included in an interactive system that allows users to
recover from their mistakes (4 Marks)
(c) How does evaluation fit into a user-centered design lifecycle? (3 Marks)
QUESTION FIVE
(a) Why is web page design different to designing for printed media? (6 Marks)
(b) What are design guidelines? (2 Marks)
(c) Shneiderman produced eight golden rules as design guidelines for systems. Discuss
any four.
(4 Marks)
(d) What is meant by accessibility? (2 Marks)
(e) Define Gestalt theory and demonstrate how this theory assists in system interfaces
development. (6 Marks)
