1. Homework Assignment 5 My Patriot Web Evaluation
Jeff Offutt
SWE 205
Software Usability Analysis and Design

2. Avoid “web-enabled” projects!!!
Summary
Student view differs from faculty view
My comments are based on the faculty view
Patriotweb is a “web-enabled legacy system”
We had an old system based on an ancient database
A company was hired to add a web interface
No changes to the underlying DB or software
Existing queries were used, without changing or adding
Avoid “web-enabled” projects!!!
10-Apr-19
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3. Three Types of Users Students Instructors Administrative staff
Beginners—use PW 2 or 3 times per semester
Criteria ranking: Learn, Error, Speed
Instructors
Intermittent—use PW 2 or 3 times per week
Criteria ranking: Errors, Speed, Learn
Administrative staff
Experts—use PW many times per day
Criteria ranking: Speed, Errors, Learn
10-Apr-19
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4. General Comments Too much navigation—excise
Too many screens
Most tasks on PW are excise
Defaults are either not present or poorly thought out
A lot of unnecessary information is presented
No thought given to “design for probable; provide for possible”
10-Apr-19
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5. Task 1
Authentication
10-Apr-19
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6. Splash Screen
Splash screen ( has no useful purpose
Why a commercial for IE? It works fine with Firefox
Login screen ( is simply a tiny form – on a big screen
Splash screen and login screen should be merged
An entire screen just to login slows the user down
No benefit to any other criterion
10-Apr-19
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7. Main Screen
Main screen is a 4-item menu–with lots of information that is not relevant to the user
The menu appears twice
The order of items on the top is different from the list in the middle—time to learn and rate of errors
The choice labels are unclear
The descriptions are very confusing
The colors are nonstandard – not obvious what is “clickable”
10-Apr-19
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8. After logging in, what are common faculty functions?
User Analysis
After logging in, what are common faculty functions?
Getting pay stubs
Getting class rosters
Assigning grades
10-Apr-19
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9. Task 2
Getting pay stubs
10-Apr-19
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10. Getting Pay Stubs Not under Financial Information
After much searching – under Employee Services
To get to pay stub :
Splash screen
Login screen
Menu screen (no title)
Choose “Employee Services”
Note the order of this menu ... most common item is pay stub
I don’t even have “time off”
Choose “Pay Information” (fifth entry)
Another 4-item menu .. not clear ...
10-Apr-19
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11. Getting Pay Stubs (cont)
Choose “Pay Stub” (third entry!)
Choose a year from a drop-down
Should be combined with previous screen
Another menu of up to 24 items!
Choose item on top of the list
GUI Principle : Radio boxes are faster, easier to learn and less error prone, but take more space
Always prefer radio boxes over drop-downs if space permits
10-Apr-19
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12. Getting Pay Stubs (summary)
Total of 9 screens, 1 or 2 clicks per screen
Better design :
Merge splash and login (screens 1 & 2)
Merge menu 3 & 5, using javascript for submenu
At step 6, show current pay stub and add menus for other options
(9 steps becomes 3)
I don’t even bother looking at my pay stubs anymore …
I just look at my bank deposits …
and therefore don’t see mistakes
10-Apr-19
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13. Task 3
Getting class roster
10-Apr-19
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14. Getting a Class Roster
“Four items (“Detail Class List”, “Summary Class List”, “Detail Wait List”, “Summary Wait List”) sound a lot alike
“Detail class list” shows contact info for students
We usually want “Summary”
“Summary Class List” screen
NO USEFUL INFORMATION without scrolling - wasted space & time
Irrelevant information :
ID, Reg Status, Level, Credits, Midterm, Final, Grade Detail
Missing useful information: !
10-Apr-19
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15. Getting a Class Roster (cont)
A useful functionality would be to either copy and paste or save the names into a spreadsheet
This is very inconvenient with the UI
I copied and pasted the entire page into a text editor, deleted extra information, then copied again to my spreadsheet …
Getting addresses ?
Scroll to bottom of the page
Click on “Display List”
It’s not displayed ! Is this an error?
Scroll down to the bottom - a textbox with a comma separated list of addresses!
Alternate formats would be a clickable link, a new column
Not convenient to associate names with s
Why not include as a default ?
“Return to previous” goes back to non- screen ...
“Return to previous” again goes back to screen with —a loop!
10-Apr-19
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16. Task 4
Entering grades
10-Apr-19
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17. Entering Grades “Faculty & Advisor Services” Terminology :
Order of menu is wrong – this should be first
“View the Terms ...” should definitely not be first !
Terminology :
What is “CRN” ?
“Final Grades” should be “Enter Final Grades”
10-Apr-19
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18. Entering Grades (cont)
An entire screen to “Select a Term”
Slow, imposes a short term memory burden
Default … changes to next term 3rd week of classes
Should default to current
Should not include choices 6 years ago … grade changes require a signed piece of paper
Only current semester is valid for entering grades …
Another screen to “Select the CRN”
“CRN” is not in users’ vocabulary, it is database-speak
Poor default … Doctoral Dissertation Proposal
Dropdown for 4 elements should be radio box
Numbers not in users’ vocabulary – “SWE 632”
10-Apr-19
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19. Entering Grades (cont)
On the third screen: The “Final Grade Worksheet is unavailable”
An unavailable menu option is teasing
An unavailable feature that is hidden behind 2 or 3 screens is torture
10-Apr-19
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20. Entering Grades—UI Violations
Tell users when choices are not available immediately
The “Faculty & Advisor Services” screen should make “Final Grades” unavailable until finals week
CRN and Select Term screens set “state” in the UI
These should be set in radio buttons or click-boxes, not in a separate-screen menu
They should be on the main menu (“Faculty & Advisor Services”)
10-Apr-19
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21. Conclusions
Programmers obviously did not consider users, user needs, or usability principles
Ultimate “inside out” approach–the internals of the system existed for many years
Entering grades requires manipulating a pull-down for each student–slow and error-prone
List includes unavailable grades (Ds for grad classes)
List is ordered alphabetical (A, A+, A- …)
Sorry I can’t show right now …
The old paper system was faster, easier to learn, had fewer errors, was easier to remember semester to semester, and was much less annoying
10-Apr-19
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