Review

Paul Ammann

http://cs.gmu.edu/~pammann/

SWE 432

Design and Implementation of Software for the Web

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Preparation For Final

• Date and Time– Thursday, December 17

– Usual Time: 4:30 to 7:10

– Usual Place: Robinson A111

• Format– Closed Book/Closed Notes

– You may bring 1 sheet of notes• Normal paper, double sided

Goal: Do well on the Final!

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Materials to Study

• Nielsen/Loranger Chapters 1-8• Sebesta Chapters 1-7, 9-11, 13• Slides

– Usability Overview

– Error Messages

– GUIs

– Menus

– Widgets

– Servlets

– JSP

– XML

– JDBC

– State Management

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Nielsen Chapter 1: Introduction: Nothing to Hide

• Where We Got Our Data

• Tell Me Again:– Why Do I Need to Do User Testing?

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Nielsen Chapter 2: The Web User Experience

• How Well Do People Use the Web?

• User Satisfaction with Web Sites

• How People Use Sites

• Search Dominance

• Scrolling

• Complying with Design Conventions and Usability Guidelines

• Information Foraging

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Nielsen Chapter 3: Revisiting Early Web Usability Findings

• Eight Problems that Haven’t Changed

• Technological Change: Its Impact on Usability

• Adaptation: How Users Have Influenced Usability

• Restraint: How Designers Have Alleviated Usability Problems

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Nielsen Chapter 4: Prioritizing Your Usability Problems

• What Makes Problems Severe

• The Scale of Misery

• Why Users Fail

• Is it Enough to Focus on the Worst Problems?

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Nielsen Chapter 5: Search

• The State of Search

• How Search Should Work

• Search Interface

• Search Engine Results Pages

• Search Engine Optimization

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Nielsen Chapter 6: Navigation and Information Architecture

• Am I There Yet?

• Match the Site Structure to User Expectations

• Navigation: Be Consistent

• Navigation: Beware the Coolness Factor

• Reduce Clutter and Avoid Redundancy

• Links and Label Names: Be Specific

• Vertical Dropdown Menus: Short is Sweet

• Multilevel Menus: Less is More

• Can I Click on It?

• Direct Access From the HomePage

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Nielsen Chapter 7: Typography: Readability and Legibility

• Body Text: The Ten Point Rule

• Relative Specifications

• Choosing Fonts

• Mixing Fonts and Colors

• Text Images

• Moving Text

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Nielsen Chapter 8: Writing For The Web

• How Poor Writing Makes Web Sites Fail

• Understanding How Web Users Read

• Writing For Your Reader

• Formatting Text for Readability

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Sebesta Study Hints

• Text Covers a Variety of Current Web Technologies– Much Intended For Programming, as opposed to Exams

– Focus on Latter

– Examples:• Client Side Event Handling vs. Coding Details

• Ajax Interactions vs. Specific Coding for Different Browsers

• Servlet/JSP/Bean Concepts vs. Deployment Details

• Each Chapter Concludes With Review Questions– Excellent Source for Exam Questions

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Sebesta Study Hints - Continued

• Dealing With Code Fragments– Examples:

• JavaScript Event Handling

• Ajax call

• PHP code

• Servlet/JSP code

• Bean access

• JDBC calls

• Typical Exam Questions– What Does Code Do?

– How Would You Change It To Do Something Else?

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Study Tips For Material on Slides• Schneiderman’s 5 criteria

– Articulate/Apply to Examples

• Four General Guidelines for Error Messages– Analyze/Transform Examples

• Flow and Revenue vs. Excise• Menu Criteria• Servlet/JSP Deployment Architecture• XML Structure, DTDs, Schemas, Validating, Parsing• JDBC – Architecture, Simple SQL• State – Session Definitions, Session vs. Context