Button Heuristic Helper
I. The Task
You want to write a VB application that will help you memorize five of the ten basic HE heuristics' relationships to a user's information processing model (IPM). You want this study helper's basic look and function to be like that of the example prototype available through the following link:
MockHeuristicHelper .
Specifically, you want the application to
* Display a heuristic's IPM relationship when the heuristic's button is clicked;
* Allow IPM relationships to be searched for and displayed, based on key words or phrases they contain. Once the application finds the first relationship that contains the word or phrase used in the search, it displays
o The name of the corresponding heuristic and
o The text of the relationship containing the key word or phrase.
This search function, you believe, will allow you to test your progress in learning the relationships. For example, if you think that the IPM relationship for heuristic x contains the word "culture," you can test your understanding by searching for the relationship using "culture" in the key word search.
To make implementing this function practical, the function should
* Display only the first relationship found containing the search string
* Implement input validation—that is, it should prompt the user
o If key words and phrases are not strings three or more characters long*
o For a valid search string when the function is invoked with no key word supplied
* This features is not included in the example prototype.
The application should also
* Conform to good programming and usability practices (that is, variables should be initialized, code should be commented, text should not be underlined, and so on); and
* Unlike the example prototype, warn users that
1. The key word or phrase must be three or more characters long* and
2. That application displays only the first relationship found containing the key word or phrase—although other relationships may contain it.*
* These features are not included in the example prototype.
II. Resources
Use the resources below to create your application: a list of five heuristics, a table of the ten IPM relationship descriptions, and a sample first-relationship-found warning.
Warning: Use only the heuristics and relationship descriptions provided below; using other heuristics or relationship descriptions from other sources may result in a substantial loss of points.
Five Targeted Heuristics
- Visibility of system status
- Error prevention
- Aesthetic and minimalist design
- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
- Help and documentation
Heuristic Relationship to the Information Processing Model of a User
- It is much easier for users to recognize that they know what to do, when the environment provides cues such that when these cues are perceived and taken into working memory, they remind users of knowledge stored in their long-term memory.
- If the computer does not through sight or sound supply users with information about its processing, they will not have the knowledge necessary to understand what is happening and what the system is doing.
- Errors can come about because users make mistakes in perception, lack knowledge of what to do next, recall the gist of commands rather than the precise syntax—or they may simply slip when they go to type or point. Some of these mistakes can be prevented by, say, an interface only showing the actions that are acceptable at a particular point (for example, by graying out inappropriate buttons). Other mistakes can be caught as soon as users make them (for example, by the interface refusing to accept an incorrect abbreviation of a U.S. state in an address form).
- This heuristic relates to the visual search aspect of perception and also to memory. The more clutter, the more information the user's eyes must search through to find the desired information. In addition, the more information coming into a user's working memory through perception as a visual search proceeds, the more information there is to interfere with the retrieval from long-term memory of the information that is relevant to the task.
- Users will make errors; therefore, they need easy ways to recover from those errors.
- This heuristic is an admonition to give the user enough information to understand how to use an application. An application's search feature should allow desired information to be found when a user specifies the gist of its meaning rather than precise wording: people usually remember only gists, not exact wordings.
- Familiar concepts, language, and real-world conventions in an interface can take advantage of knowledge users already have and, therefore, can make the interface more familiar and easier to use.
- The value of accelerators comes primarily from the motor processes of the user. Typing single keys is typically faster than continually moving the hand from keyboard to mouse and pointing to something on the screen. Furthermore, skilled users will develop plans of action that they will want to execute frequently, and an interface that supports this kind of tailoring will allow these plans to be captured in the interface itself.
- Making use of users' prior knowledge of and experience with other parts of the same application and other applications on the same platform will make an interface more familiar and easier to use.
- This heuristic is simply an admonition to give the user sufficient information to understand error situations.
Sample First-Relationship-Found Warning
Below is a sample first-relationship-found warning. To save time, you may use the sample in your application, but feel free to compose one of your own.
Only the first relationship found containing the search key will be displayed. Search keys should therefore be as unique as possible.
III. The Application You Turn In
To summarize, the application you turn in should
1. For the display of IPM relationships
* Display a heuristic's IPM relationship when the heuristic's button is clicked;
2. For the search of IPM relationships
* Allow IPM relationships to be searched for and displayed, based on key words or phrases they contain—displaying the name of the corresponding heuristic and relationship of the first relationship found containing a string matching the key word or phrase;
* Implement input validation;
* Should warn users of the 3-or-more-characters search key requirement and that the application displays only the first-found relationship with a match*; and
* Conform to good programming and usability practices (that is, variables should be initialized, code should be commented and properly indented, text should not be underlined, and so on).
* These features are not included in the example prototype.
Submission
Submit the following files:
* A project archive, named Exam1_BH.zip