UNIT III MODELS AND THEORIES

PART A

1.Define Cognitive complexity theory?

 Cognitive complexity theory, introduced by Kieras and Polson [199], begins with the
basic premises of goal decomposition from GOMS and enriches the model to provide
more predictive power.
 CCT has two parallel descriptions: one of the user’s goals and the other of the computer
system (called the device in CCT).

2.Discuss about the Task–action grammar?

 Task–action grammar (TAG) [284] attempts to deal with some of these problems by
including elements such as parametrized grammar rules to emphasize consistency and
encoding the user’s world knowledge (for example, up is the opposite of down).

3.What is Keystroke-level model?

 KLM (Keystroke-Level Model [55]) uses this understanding as a basis for detailed
predictions about user performance.
 It is aimed at unit tasks within interaction – the execution of simple command sequences,
typically taking no more than 20 seconds.

4.What are the Keystroke-level model phases?

The task is split into two phases:
acquisition of the task, when the user builds a mental representation of the task;
execution of the task using the system’s facilities.

5.Discuss about the operator in KLM?

 The model decomposes the execution phase into five different physical motor operators,
a mental operator and a system response operator:
K Keystroking, actually striking keys, including shifts and other modifier keys.
B Pressing a mouse button.
P Pointing, moving the mouse (or similar device) at a target.

H Homing, switching the hand between mouse and keyboard.

D Drawing lines using the mouse.
M Mentally preparing for a physical action.
R System response which may be ignored if the user does not have to wait for it,
as in copy typing.

6.Define and draw Three-state model?

7.Define knowledge-level system?

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  In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a system exhibiting rational behavior is referred
to as a knowledge-level system. A knowledge-level system contains an agent behaving in
an environment.
 The agent has knowledge about itself and its environment, including its own goals.

8.What are issues in stakeholder requirements?

 Free rider problem

 Critical mass

9.Discuss about CUSTOM methodology?

Custom Methodology
 CUSTOM is a socio-technical methodology designed to be practical to use in small
organizations It is based on the User Skills and Task Match (USTM) approach, developed
to allow design teams to understand and fully document user requirements .

10. What is Open System Task Analysis (OSTA)?

 OSTA is an alternative socio-technical approach, which attempts to describe what
happens when a technical system is introduced into an organizational work environment.

11.Discuss about Soft systems methodology

Soft systems methodology (SSM) arises from the same tradition but takes a view of the
organization as a system of which technology and people are components. Root definitions are
described in
terms of specific elements, summarized using the acronym, CATWOE:
 Clients – those who receive output or benefit from the system.
 Actors – those who perform activities within the system.
 Transformations – the changes that are effected by the system. This is a critical part of
the root definition as it leads to the activities that need to


12.Define Participatory design?

 Participatory design is a philosophy that encompasses the whole design cycle. It is
design in the workplace, where the user is involved not only as an experimental subject or
as someone to be consulted when necessary but as a member of the design team.

13.Explain the methods of Participatory design?

 Brainstorming
 Storyboarding
 Workshops
 Pencil and paper exercises
 Consultative

14.Define Face-To-Face Communication?

 Face-to-face contact is the most primitive form of communication – primitive, that is, in
terms of technology.

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  If, on the other hand, we consider the style of communication, the interplay between
different channels and productivity, we instead find that face-to-face is the most
sophisticated communication mechanism available.

15.What are the two types of context within conversation?

internal context – dependence on earlier utterances.
external context – dependence on the environment.

16.What are types of textual communication?

 There are four types of textual communication in current groupware:
discrete – directed message as in email. There is no explicit connection between different
messages, except in so far as the text of the message refers to a previous one.
linear – participants’ messages are added in (usually temporal) order to the end of a
single transcript.
non-linear – when messages are linked to one another in a hypertext fashion.
spatial – where messages are arranged on a two-dimensional surface.

17.What are the properties of grounding constraints?

 The properties of these channels in terms of grounding constraints. These include:
 cotemporality – an utterance is heard as soon as it is said (or typed);
 simultaneity – the participants can send and receive at the same time;
 sequence – the utterances are ordered.

18.Define animation?

Animation
 Animation is the term given to the addition of motion to images, making them move,
alter and change in time. A simple example of animation in an interface is in the form of
a clock.
 Digital clocks can flick by the seconds, whilst others imitate Salvador Dali and bend and
warp one numeral into the next.

19.Discuss about application of animation?

 Video and audio

 Rapid prototyping
 Education and e-learning
 Collaboration and community
 E-commerce

20.What are the issues in web content?

 bandwidth
 latency.
 lossy,

21.Define bandwidth?
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  This is a measure of the amount of information that can pass down the channel in a given
time. For example, a typical modem speed is 56 kbs – that is 56 kilobits per second. This
equates to about 6000 characters per second.
22.Define latency?
 There is also the time it takes for a message to get across the network from your machine
to the web server and back. This delay is called latency.

23.What are The user view in web?

 One set of issues is based on what the end-user sees, the end-user here being the web
viewer.
What changes?
By whom?
How often?.

24.Draw the dynamic content diagram?

PART B

1.Explain in detail about cognitive model?

Overview:
 Goal And Task Hierarchies
 Selection
 Cognitive Complexity Theory
 Problems And Extensions Of Goal Hierarchies

INTRODUCTION
 The techniques and models in this chapter all claim to have some representation of users
as they interact with an interface; that is, they model some aspect of the user’s
understanding, knowledge, intentions or processing.

GOAL AND TASK HIERARCHIES

 Many models make use of a model of mental processing in which the user achieves goals
by solving subgoals in a divide-and-conquer fashion. We will consider two models,
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 GOMS and CCT, where this is a central feature. However, we will see similar features in
other models, such as TAG (Section 12.3.2) and when we consider task analysis
techniques (Chapter 15).
 Imagine we want to produce a report on sales of introductory HCI textbooks.
 To achieve this goal we divide it into several subgoals, say gathering the data together,
producing the tables and histograms, and writing the descriptive material. Concentrating
on the data gathering, we decide to split this into further subgoals: find the names of all
introductory HCI textbooks and then search the book sales database for these books.
Similarly, each of the other subgoals is divided up into further subgoals, until some level
of detail is found at which we decide to stop.
 We thus end up with a hierarchy of goals and subgoals. The example can be laid out to
expose this structure:
produce report
gather data
. find book names
. . do keywords search of names database
<<further subgoals>>
. . sift through names and abstracts by hand
<<further subgoals>>
. search sales database
<<further subgoals>>
layout tables and histograms
<<further subgoals>>
write description
<<further subgoals>>

GOAL: ICONIZE-WINDOW
. [select GOAL: USE-CLOSE-METHOD
. . MOVE-MOUSE-TO-WINDOW-HEADER
. . POP-UP-MENU
. . CLICK-OVER-CLOSE-OPTION
GOAL: USE-L7-METHOD
. . PRESS-L7-KEY]
The dots are used to indicate the hierarchical level of goals.

Selection
 From the above snippet we see the use of the word select where the choice of methods
arises. GOMS does not leave this as a random choice, but attempts to predict which
methods will be used.
 This typically depends both on the particular user and on the state of the system and
details about the goals. For instance, a user, Sam, never uses the L7-METHOD, except
for one game, ‘blocks’, where the mouse needs to be used in the game until the very
moment the key is pressed. GOMS captures this in a selection rule for Sam:
User Sam:
Rule 1: Use the CLOSE-METHOD unless another rule applies.
Rule 2: If the application is ‘blocks’ use the L7-METHOD.
 The goal hierarchies described in a GOMS analysis are almost wholly below the level of
the unit task defined earlier. A typical GOMS analysis would therefore consist of a single

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 high-level goal, which is then decomposed into a sequence of unit tasks, all of which can
be further decomposed down to the level of basic operators:
GOAL: EDIT-MANUSCRIPT
. GOAL: EDIT-UNIT-TASK repeat until no more unit tasks
 The goal decomposition between the overall task and the unit tasks would involve
detailed understanding of the user’s problem-solving strategies and of the application
domain. These are side-stepped entirely by the method as originally proposed

Cognitive complexity theory

 Cognitive complexity theory, introduced by Kieras and Polson [199], begins with the
basic premises of goal decomposition from GOMS and enriches the model to provide
more predictive power. CCT has two parallel descriptions: one of the user’s goals and the
other of the computer system (called the device in CCT).

 This is a reasonably frequent typing error and so we assume that we have developed good
procedures to perform the task. We consider a fragment of the associated CCT
production rules.
(SELECT-INSERT-SPACE
IF (AND (TEST-GOAL perform unit task)
(TEST-TEXT task is insert space)
(NOT (TEST-GOAL insert space))
(NOT (TEST-NOTE executing insert space)) )

THEN ( (ADD-GOAL insert space)

(ADD-NOTE executing insert space)
(LOOK-TEXT task is at %LINE %COL) ))
(INSERT-SPACE-DONE
IF (AND (TEST-GOAL perform unit task)
(TEST-NOTE executing insert space)
Problems and extensions of goal hierarchies
 The formation of a goal hierarchy is largely a post hoc technique and runs a very real risk
of being defined by the computer dialog rather than the user. One way to rectify this is to
produce a goal structure based on pre-existing manual procedures and thus obtain a
natural hierarchy [201].
 To be fair, GOMS defines its domain to be that of expert use, and thus the goal structures
that are important are those which users develop out of their use of the system. However,
such a natural hierarchy may be particularly useful as part of a CCT analysis,
representing a very early state of knowledge.

2.Explain in detail about linguistic models?

OVERVIEW:
 Linguistic Models
 Bnf
 Task–Action Grammar
 The Challenge Of Display-Based Systems