Exams - ISU570 Human Computer Interaction

Quiz #2 notes - ISU570 Human Computer Interaction

Too many students described their thoughts and reactions to things rather than focusing more analytically on the specific topics that were asked about in the questions.
Some brought up the 7 ± 2 "limit" on memory. But we have emphasized in the course that this idea was developed in experiments in which subjects had to memorize lists of unrelated items. People have the ability to remember thousands of things that have either consistency, such as a poem, or are remembered via recognition.

A few students had well-organized answers in which there were two clearly labeled sections, "Constraints" and "Consistency".
A good number of the answers jumped in and criticized aspects of a system as well as ways to redesign the system. Most of these hardly focused on, or even mentioned constraints or consistency.
Many pointed out, correctly, that grayed out items in menus indicated constraints.

The relations between word processors and writing on paper are deeper and more complex than anyone really described. There is so much to say about this that I will go over it in class.
My mistake was to describe the relation as a metaphor rather than the correct term, simile. Thanks to a student for pointing this out.

Again, few people carefully separated the topics of learning and memory.
Learning is a process that can take time, is improved by repetition, has various degrees of difficulty, may be forgotten or misremembered, etc.
Feedback can assist learning.
Memory is the recall and use of things learned, whether cognitive or in the motor system.
Many of the indicators on dashboards serve as external memory: You don't have to remember whether or not your high beams are on (an indicator shows you); you don't have to remember when you last put in gas and estimate how much is left (a gauge tells you), etc.