M206 - M206 TMA01 Question 2
- Question 1 was posting messages to the conference and is not included.
Question 2
i) email: - electronic mail the same as paper-based letters and memos etc., but sent electronically from computer user to computer user usually via a mail server.
Search engine: - this is an index of the Web in which the user can search for Web sites containing information of interest to the user. In this case the user would have searched on Smalltalk and a number of Web sites would have been presented in a list. An example of a Web Search Engine is Lycos. A search engine is a server that maintains indexes.
Web site: - is a collection of pages linked in some way so that users can access the information in a logical manner. The Web site is usually under the control of an individual or an organisation and is located on a computer anywhere in the world running Web software (Web server). The Web site here is one for Smalltalk.
Home page: - this is the main or first page of a Web site, it usually has some information about the site and links to other pages within the site or links to other related sites. A personal Web site may only consist of one or a few pages whereas a large corporate site may contain many pages e.g. www.bbc.co.uk. In this case the student followed a link from the Search engine to the Smalltalk Web site Home page.
Link: - a hypertext link is a pointer to other Web pages within the same site or elsewhere on the Web. An example of a link follows: - www.intel.com
URL: Uniform Resource Locator - this is a unique address of a web site e.g. www.microsoft.com
M206 OUSA Conference - similar to Newsgroups on the Web, but this is in First Class and is a discussion group for students taking M206. The conference is a system where users may post, read and reply to messages asynchronously, they do not take place in real time like an online chat. Unlike personal email all users with access to the conference can see all messages and can take action as they feel fit. As with personal email it is possible to attach files to the messages, as the student did in this case. it should not be used for personal messages, if the message is personal then email should be used.
Attachment: - any file that is attached to an email, in this case it is the list of URLs from the Smalltalk Web site.
FTP: - File Transfer Protocol is a protocol for up and downloading files to and from the Web. In this case the student is being pointed towards the Smalltalk Web site where he should be able to download the latest version of ObjectShare.
(ii) To switch the radio on and off; 1 would use two action buttons one labelled On and the other Off. 1could also use a pair of mutually exclusive radio buttons with labels two achieve the same purpose. The other widgets are totally unsuitable in the case of the slider or offer poor affordance in the case of the menu.
To select a wave band (AM of FM); 1 would use 2 mutually exclusive radio buttons one labelled FM and the other AM. The radio buttons would have to be mutually exclusive to avoid the occurrence of the user selecting both AM and FM at the same time. Two action buttons and labels may also work here. The other widgets mentioned are unsuitable since a one oMonday, 14 July, 2008 19:33rovide this facility nor can they do it in such a clean manner.
To tune into a particular wave length; 1 would use a slider for course tuning with a label marked in graduations reflecting the frequency arranged along the slider to give the user visual feedback. The use of the slider is dictated by the analogue (more logarithmic actually) nature of tuning into a frequency. For fine-tuning 1 would use two action buttons one marked up and one marked down. Action buttons being best here because they can be set to change the tuning by a small amount each time they are operated and they lend themselves to being clicked in a manner which would suite fine-tuning. It maybe that 1 would need this set-up one for AM and one for FM. L would prefer if possible to use only 1 slider and two action buttons with two labelled scales for AM and FM, the range of the slider would be set by which of the frequency selectors was selected. Also the label relating to the frequency selected would be highlighted to confirm band selection.
To set the volume; 1 would use a slider with a label marked in even graduations between MIN MAX arranged along the slider to give the user some visual indication of the volume level. The choice of a slider here is dictated by the nature of volume level is set within a range of values, none of the other widgets have this characteristic.
(iii)The primary difference between a modal dialogue box and a non-modal dialogue box is a modal dialogue box stops all action until the user has answered its message whereas a non-modal dialogue box allows the user to undertake some activity before answering the message in the box. An example of a modal dialogue box 1 have come across is when 1 start an application that requires to be read from a CD. 1 either haven't got a CD in the drive or it's the wrong one here I get a simple choice, a message states the CD hasn't been found and 1 have the choice of retry or cancel. An example of a non-modal would be the print dialog when using Word, 1 can alter several items such as number of copies before proceeding.
(iv) The door is an example of poor affordance because visually the handle would suggest that the door should be pulled towards the user rather than pushed. Since there does not appear to be any labelling to say push it tends to reinforce the idea that the handle should be pulled.