Contents:

Assignment 1, Due Thursday, May 17th

Objectives

Become (at least passively) familiar with a way of describing the objects and actions included in the conceptual model underlying a user interface.
Get used to analysing a user interface in terms of how well it conveys the underlying conceptual model.
Get to know the GLOCAL user interface, which will be studied and improved during the course.

Sources of Information About the GLOCAL Interface

The best thing is to work through the walkthrough that you will find when you visit http://www.dfki.de/glocal/unstable and click on the icon mentioned on the main screen.
The text for the walkthrough appears in a separate window, and you can work through it while using the interface.

Note that the prototype currently only works with Firefox. So if you don’t yet have Firefox, we must ask you to install it (or get access to a computer that has it), since you will need to use it throughout the course.
If there is some technical problem that prevents the interface from working properly, consult instead the last few slides from the lecture of Wednesday, April 18th.
The screenshots there do not correspond exactly with the steps of the walkthrough, but they should be close enough for you to be able to understand the walkthrough.

Note added on Saturday, May 5th: In the version of the slides that was uploaded originally, the resolution of the screenshots wasn’t very high; the slides have in the meantime been replaced with sharper screen shots.
If you find it useful to read a higher-level textual description of the interface, you can optionally read at a two-page article that was published as a demo description.
This article refers to the soccer World Cup domain, which may not be working when you visit the system.

Parts of the Conceptual Model

Each of the following sections shows a part of the description of a conceptual model of the GLOCAL user interface, similar to the descriptions shown in the slides of Tuesday, April 24th.

The descriptions are intended to be reasonable, but they are not perfect.

Events and Subevents

Event
- Attributes
  - Subevents: a Subevent Set
  - Visibility: “visible” or “invisible”
  - Location: a pair of geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude)
  - Keywords: a set of words
  - Related Item Sets: list of Related Item Sets
Subevent Set
- Attributes
  - Events: a list of Events
  - Expansion: “collapsed” or “expanded”
- Operations
  - Expand
  - Collapse

Views

View
- Attributes
  - Top-Level Event: an event
  - Visibility specification: For each Subevent Set and Related Item set below the Top-Level Event in the hierarchy, a specification of its visibility
- Operations
  - Switch to a view where top-level event = superevent of current Top-Level Event
  - Switch to a view with top-level event = one of the other events currently visible in this view
  - Filter by location (i.e., switch to a view that includes only events with the given location)
  - Filter by keywords (i.e., switch to a view whose description includes all of the specified keywords)

Event Stories

Event Story
- Attributes
  - Title: a string
  - Author: a string
  - Text: a string
  - Hyperlinks: a set of Hyperlinks
- Operations
  - Copy
  - Delete
  - Edit
Hyperlink
- Attributes
  - Position in text
  - Target View: a View
- Operation
  - Cause target view to be displayed on the screen
  - Update view (i.e., make the currently displayed view be the Target View for this hyperlink)
  - Delete
  - Create

Questions About Each Part of the Conceptual Model

For each part of the model, write a text that addresses the questions listed below. You don’t have to present your answers in the exact order in which the questions are asked; but do present a separate text for each part of the model.

(Note added on Thursday, May 10th, in response to a question: You do not need to analyze or discuss aspects of the system that are not represented at all in the above description, such as the functionality found in the other panels of the user interface.)

Can you find any flaws in the description of this part of the conceptual model, or any ways in which it could be improved? For example, is it inaccurate, inconsistent, or unnecessarily complicated?
How is the part of the model you are considering reflected in the user interface?
For example, you can consider the following questions, noting that it is not always necessary or desirable for the answer to be “yes”:
- Are there explicit words in the interface that correspond to the objects and actions in the model?
- Does every object have a simple visual representation in the interface?
- Is there a simple representation of every action (e.g., an icon or a menu item)?
Which parts of the conceptual model do you think will be hardest for users to understand and recognize? Why?
Note: Remember that it is not necessary for users to be able to understand all aspects of the conceptual model soon after starting to use the system. Even when they have become experienced, some users may never need to understand the entire model.
Can you suggest any improvements to the interface that could make it easier for users to grasp the conceptual model?
Please don’t mention here improvements to the interface that have nothing to do with the conceptual model (e.g., a color combination that you think doesn’t look good). There will be opportunities later in the course to deal with such issues.

What Exactly to Submit

Regardless of any working documents that the group members may produce while working in the assignment, the final result should be a single document with text (and optionally, graphics).
Natural formats for this first assignment: a Google Docs “document”; or a Word or Open Office document.
As was explained earlier, you can feel free to submit your work in German, English, or some combination of the two (e.g., if different parts are written by different students).
It should be uploaded to Google Docs (either with or without conversion to Google Doc format) and then “shared” with the following persons:
- Tanja Schneeberger: tanjaschneeberger89@googlemail.com
- Robin Woll: robin_woll@web.de
- Sven Buschbeck: sven.buschbeck@googlemail.com
- Anthony Jameson: anthonyjameson@googlemail.com

What to Do If You Have a Question

If, while working on the assignment, you have a question that cannot be answered with the help of the instructions and the other available material cited above, please send it by email to Tanja Schneeberger (tanjaschneeberger89@googlemail.com), who is the tutor primarily responsible for this assignment.

Basic Information

For Students Only