This assignment is due on November 25. It is necessary and critical, however, that you prepare part of this assignment before your visit to the accelerator and MBE installations on November 18 or 19 (see below). Because you are expected to put more extensive thought and effort into this assignment than into others, and to integrate different kinds of material to a much greater extent than in previous assignments, this assignment will be weighted doubly (i.e. counted as two assignments) in the calculation of grades.

Background:

You are an expert reviewer for man machine interfaces including computer components. Your client has asked you to review the man machine interfaces for two of their installations, a particle accelerator and an MBE system. You have already received general information on this equipment (http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~baber/Courses/4D03/AccMBE/AcceleratorMBE.html) and you have compiled a list of questions (Assignment 5) you want answered during your visit to their installations.

Now, in final preparation for your visit, you are planning the structure of the report you will later deliver to your client and the specific criteria for evaluating the information you will collect during your visit. You are also thinking about the types of recommendations you will give and the underlying factors upon which you will base your recommendations. You have worked on teams reviewing the man machine interfaces of industrial equipment before, but this is your first assignment for which you carry sole and full responsibility. It is also the first time you are to review the interface for either a particle accelerator or an MBE installation.

You have decided that your final report will contain at least the following information:

1. The types of people using the man machine interfaces in question. This section of your report will identify all relevant characteristics, qualifications, abilities, etc. of the users of the systems that the HCI designers may and should assume (and, as appropriate, characteristics, etc. they should not assume).

2. Your assessment of the various aspects of the current man machine interfaces in the systems in question. This section of your report will identify each significant aspect specifically and state your assessment (e.g. good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, etc.) and the underlying reasons (e.g. relating to human psychology, HCI technology, etc.) for your assessment. You will use the relevant literature as background information and as checklists, but you are fully aware that you must apply and interpret such general information, ideas, concepts, etc. concretely to the specific details of the accelerator and MBE man machine interfaces in question.

3. Your recommendations for improvements. This section of your report will give your specific and detailed recommendations for improvements to the existing interfaces, together with your reasons, your predictions of the benefits to be gained and the likely consequences of not making the recommended improvements.

4. Your concept for a new interface. This section of your report will contain your preliminary concept for a completely new interface design. This initial concept must be specific, i.e. not simply a list of generalities, but will not go into extensive detail. It will, if accepted, provide the basis for more detailed and complete design work. It must be specific enough that the advantages of an interface based on it will be apparent. For the same reason, you realize that you must justify the main aspects of your proposed concept.

Before your visit on November 18 or 19:

Before your visit to the accelerator and MBE installations on November 18 or 19, review the list of questions you have already prepared (in Assignment 5) and relate them to your above plans for your report. Revise your list of questions as appropriate. Further detail your plan for the visit as you deem desirable.

After your visit:

Prepare the contents of the four sections of the report as outlined in items 1-4 above.

In your report sections, pay particular attention to the concrete specifics of the actual interfaces in question. Clients do not pay expert reviewers for general concepts, information, etc., that they can obtain less expensively from publicly available publications such as our textbooks by Raskin and Shneiderman. Clients expect the expert reviewer to select relevant concepts, principles, etc. and to apply them explicitly and in practically exploitable detail to the client's specific situation and needs.

Hand in on November 25:

Hand in the four sections of the report as outlined in items 1-4 above. You may add additional sections if you like, but be sure to hand in the four sections specified above, each clearly and individually identified.