CS295J/Application Critiques: Difference between revisions
< CS295J
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*# Most people are familiar with it or can readily try using it. | *# Most people are familiar with it or can readily try using it. | ||
*# Excel is heavily used by the users who use it, and is frequently used to do analysis and sensemaking tasks such as the workflow outlined above. | *# Excel is heavily used by the users who use it, and is frequently used to do analysis and sensemaking tasks such as the workflow outlined above. | ||
*# Contains many visualization features including graph generation, equation flow visualization, and conditional formatting | *# Contains many visualization features including graph generation, equation flow visualization, and conditional formatting. | ||
*# Is often used to ask questions of the nature "what if..." and even includes basic features to support this workflow. | |||
* '''Con's of critiquing''' | * '''Con's of critiquing''' | ||
*# Spreadsheets may not be seen as fun. | *# Spreadsheets may not be seen as fun. | ||
Revision as of 16:55, 19 February 2009
Applications
A list of analytical applications we will consider critiquing and the pros and cons of proceeding with each.
Craigslist
Description of application: A website that hosts user-submitted classified ads, from job postings to garage sale items.
- Workflow to critique: The process of purchasing an item from the site (for example, "men's size 10 shoes").
- Pro's of critiquing
- Most people are familiar with the site, or can readily try using it.
- Has a design clearly different from most websites, yet is extremely popular (despite its design?).
- May be a source for discussing cognitive limitations such as information overload and problems with categorization.
- Con's of critiquing
- Not used for scientific analysis, so it doesn't exactly meet the criteria for the type of application we're looking for.
Microsoft Excel
OWNER: Andrew Bragdon
Description of application: A spreadsheet application that helps users perform complex financial and scientific calculations and analysis.
- Workflow to critique: A sensemaking task in a large spreadsheet, such as understanding why the project is over budget by more than 20%.
- Pro's of critiquing
- Most people are familiar with it or can readily try using it.
- Excel is heavily used by the users who use it, and is frequently used to do analysis and sensemaking tasks such as the workflow outlined above.
- Contains many visualization features including graph generation, equation flow visualization, and conditional formatting.
- Is often used to ask questions of the nature "what if..." and even includes basic features to support this workflow.
- Con's of critiquing
- Spreadsheets may not be seen as fun.
Photoshop
Description of application: A graphics-editing program for complex image manipulation or analysis. E J Kalafarski 15:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
- Workflow to critique: A goal-oriented task requiring a series of non-linear operations, such as the application of masks, the organization of layers, the application of filters, and the navigation of paths, color channels, and the 2D space.
- Pros of critiquing
- Has a non-linear workflow and 2.5D space (layers and masks require semi-three-dimensional thinking), allowing for goal-oriented tasks with various approaches each.
- Is familiar in goal and purpose to most users, but most users will need to explore the application space and discover functionality.
- Applications of design principles such as simplicity (or lack thereof), predictability, feedback and control, and interruptibility. These have cognitive analogues in affordance (e.g., time-dependent widgets like history and space-dependent widgets such as channels and paths), retention, etc.
- Cons of critiquing
- Image manipulation has relation to limited scientific analysis, in fields such as computer vision, object recognition, HCI, etc.