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COMP9511 – Human Computer Interaction

发布时间：2026-03-17

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COMP9511 – Human Computer Interaction

Assignment 1

Term 1, 2026

User Interface Analysis & Critique

DUE: Sunday, March 15 at 23:59 (Week 4)

1. Introduction

In designing a user interface, it is important to be able to critically analyse what makes a website good or bad, without just stating that you do or do not like it. The critique should be based on formal user interface principles and theories instead of basing it on your ideas.The process of providing a critique involves stating both the positive and negative aspects of the interface.

In this assignment, you will critically analyse the user interface of a legal information or consumer rights website. These websites provide essential public services, including legal advice, consumer protection, dispute resolution, tenancy rights, and information about government regulations. They are often content-heavy, policy-driven, and used by a diverse audience including vulnerable or digitally inexperienced users.

You may choose one of the following websites, or select a similar one related to legal guidance, consumer rights, or regulatory services in Australia or internationally. If you choose another website you should get permission from your tutor for the chosen website as it should contain another substance to do a thorough heuristic evaluation.

Example Websites:

NSW Fair Trading

Offers consumer protection, tenancy information, building licenses, and dispute resolution.

Legal Aid NSW

Provides free legal services, self-help resources, and support for disadvantaged people.

ACCC – Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

Covers competition law, fair trading, scams, and product safety.

Justice Connect

Supports not-for-profits and individuals with legal help and digital legal tools.

Victorian Legal Aid

Another state-based legal aid service, similar to NSW’s.

QCAT – Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal

Offers legal services related to small claims, tenancy, and administrative reviews.

Citizens Advice (UK)

A widely used UK site offering free advice on consumer rights, housing, employment, and legal issues.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (USA)

Provides consumer protection and financial education in the US context.

You can analyse the whole website or even select some key pages.

Please make sure you review the website in the English language.

2. Steps for doing this assignment

The following presents a list of steps that you need to follow to complete the assignment. Please set out your work clearly in a report-based format.

2.1. Introduction: Provide a brief explanation of the purpose of the website.

2.2. Analysis of the design and visual design principles in an issue table: Try to complete some tasks from the user's perspective while analysing the website. The tasks should cover the main functionality of the website.

As you complete the tasks, note down any negative or positive aspects of the interface in an issues table (see Appendix B).

Your critique is based on Design Principles, Heuristics, Usability Goals and User Experience Goals (found in Appendix A).

Additionally, you are required to analyse the chosen website based on visual design principles, including layout style (symmetry or asymmetry), white space, colour harmony, colour contrast, alignment of the components, and system flow. Once again note down any issues you encounter or any positive aspects of the interface in an issues table.

List both design principles and visual design principles in the table.

Please consider the points below in your issue table:

a. In your issue table, you should try to list as many usability and visual design issues as you can, including both positive and negative issues.

b. Number each of the issues that you discovered in your walkthrough. The issues table (refer to Appendix B) will consist of an Issue Number, whether the issue is Positive/Negative, Severity rating, Description, Heuristic, Design Principle or Visual Design Principles that apply to each issue and the effects of each issue on the Usability Goals and the User Experience Goals. You will also include a screenshot of the issue found with an annotation that explains the issue visually. (You should annotate your screenshots to make it clear where the issue presents itself).

c. As you go, link how the lack or existence of each principle (Design Principles, Heuristic Principles, and Visual Design Principles) could affect the Usability goals and, consequently, the user experience goals.

For example, if the text colour is completely different on different pages of the website, it is an example of lack of consistency which is related to the design principal category, lack of consistency can affect learnability which is related to usability goals, and it can make the website annoying or frustrating which is related to the user experience goals. You can find this example in Appendix B.

d. Please consider that each issue can be related to more than one design or heuristic principle.

e. You must consider a mixture of both positive and negative issues.

f. Make sure your screenshots point out specific features on the screenshots. Do this by annotating the screenshots. We strongly encourage you to take regular screenshots as the websites are live and can change without notice.

Pictures below show some examples of annotated screenshots:

If you prefer not to include the screenshots in the table, you can put them in an appendix and just add the image number in the issues table.

2.3. Analysis of the design and visual design principles in detail

a. Choose 8 negative issues from your issues table and IN DETAIL provide a critique of the issues and potential solutions to solve the issue. For example, if you have 20 issues in your issue table, choose the 8 most important negative issues and explain them in detail.

b. You should explain each issue based on the design principles, the heuristics principles, visual design principles or a combination of them, then mention why the lack of or existence of each issue could increase or decrease the usability goals and consequently the user experience goals.

c. Your critical analysis should have enough detail. For instance, it is not enough to just mention “the arrangement of buttons provides a poor mapping.” You must be able to critically justify each of your points in detail and explain WHY it is of concern.

d. After doing the critical analysis for each of the 8 issues, justify the reason you believe there is a usability or visual design issue and suggest a possible solution to resolve the issue. For example, if there is a consistency issue, propose a solution to address the consistency issue of the website.

2.4. Analysis of Accessibility

In this section, you will analyse the website in terms of accessibility for people with different needs, including vision impairment, colour blindness, hearing impairment, etc. and provide possible solutions to solve 2 accessibility-related issues.

* You don't need to include the accessibility issues in the issue table.

2.5. Analysis of Adaptive Interface Design

Review the website on a device with a smaller screen, such as a mobile phone or tablet, and identify usability issues related to the adaptive interface, touch friendliness, and design consistency across different screen sizes that may affect learnability. Identify three usability issues and propose a solution for each.

* You don't need to include the issues in the issue table.

2.6. Sketch your design solutions

Referring to the issues identified related to the design principles, visual design, accessibility

and adaptive interface design, sketch 13 potential solutions (8 sketches related to the usability

and visual design principles, 2 sketches related to accessibility, and 3 sketches for adaptive

interface design issues) to these issues that you believe may improve the interface. Please

annotate the sketch of your solution making it clear what you have changed and explaining

how it has improved the interface or removed the issue you had originally found.

3. Formatting

Please read the following carefully, as there are marks allocated for your formatting and presentation.

● The report should be presented in an A4 document.

● The report, excluding the cover pages, must be a maximum of 20 pages.

● 12-point font should be used for the main body of text.

● Consistent font sizes (e.g., use the same font size for all headings)

● Use 1.5 line spacing

● Use a 2.5 cm margin on all sides (top, bottom, left, and right).

● Add page numbers

● Include your details including name, student number, tutorial time, and tutor on the title page.

The following can be used as an overall guide for structuring your report:

A. Title Page, stating the title of your assignment, your name, student number and the name of your tutor and tutorial time – THIS IS NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR PAGE LIMIT

B. Explaining the purpose of the selected website (One paragraph)

C. Issues table (including Annotated Screenshots) (3-4 pages)

D. Analysis of the 8 chosen design and visual design issues with their respective 8 solutions (4-6 pages)

E. Analysis of the adaptive interface and solutions (2-3 pages)

F. Analysis of the accessibility and solutions (1-1.5 page)

G. Sketch of the solutions (5-6 pages) – each sketch must be at least 1/3 a page for readability

Note to the above: The number of pages above are guidelines and suggested maximums for each section. You do not need to fill the suggested space. The maximum for the report is 20 pages in total, please note that the title page does not contribute to this page limit.

Your work is evaluated based on your depth of analysis and the accuracy of your answers. Therefore, if the number of pages is less than 20, it won’t affect your mark given you cover all the required parts of the assignment to high quality.

4. Assessment

Please ensure you read the following carefully, as there is important information regarding how you are to submit the assignment.

The assignment constitutes 25% of your final assessment.
This assignment is to be completed individually.
For late submissions:

A late penalty of 5% will be deducted (off the raw mark) per day (or part thereof) late.
Assignments submitted after 23:59 on the due date will be marked as late.
E.g. if your assignment is marked at 80% and you are late by two days, you will receive 70%

5. Submission

The assignment is to be submitted electronically through Moodle as a PDF file.

The assignment is due and to be submitted online (using the provided link) in Week 4, March 15th at 23:59.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In the final hours or so before the submission deadline, Moodle often experiences a high load as students try to submit at once. A late submission because Moodle was overloaded is not a valid excuse. Upload earlier! Uploading your assignment earlier will also give you a chance to make any necessary changes to your work if plagiarism is detected by the plagiarism checker upon submission.

A Turnitin submission link will be made available on Moodle prior to the due date. As you submit, your assignment will be passed through a plagiarism check. If there are any issues, you can re submit the assignment and a new plagiarism report will be generated.

Please note that for second and subsequent submissions, it can take up to 24 hours to generate the plagiarism report, so do not leave this to the last minute!

6. Plagiarism

If plagiarism is detected a maximum penalty of zero marks will be awarded for this assignment. Note that all cases of plagiarism are reported to the School Plagiarism officer. All assignments

are run through a plagiarism checker so it would be ill-advised to copy and paste either from the web or another student.

Assignments are checked against a database of past and present submissions,along with online websites and other resources.

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the presentation of the thoughts or work of another as one’s own. * Examples include:

direct duplication of the thoughts or work of another, including by copying material, ideas or concepts from a book, article, report, or other written document (whether published or unpublished), composition, artwork, design, drawing, circuitry, computer program or software, web site, Internet, other electronic resources, or another person’s assignment without appropriate acknowledgement.
paraphrasing another person’s work with very minor changes keeping the meaning, form and/or progression of ideas of the original.
piecing together sections of the work of others into a new whole.
presenting an assessment item as independent work when it has been produced in whole or part in collusion with other people, for example, another student or a tutor; and
claiming credit for a proportion of work contributed to a group assessment item that is greater than that actually contributed.

For the purposes of this policy, submitting an assessment item that has already been submitted for academic credit elsewhere may be considered plagiarism.

Knowingly permitting your work to be copied by another student may also be considered to be plagiarism.

Note that an assessment item produced in oral, not written, form, or involving live presentation, may similarly contain plagiarised material.

The inclusion of the thoughts or work of another person or system with attribution appropriate to the academic discipline does not amount to plagiarism.

The Learning Centre website is the main repository for resources for staff and students on plagiarism and academic honesty. These resources can be located via: https://student.unsw.edu.au/plagiarism

The Learning Centre also provides substantial educational written materials, workshops, and tutorials to aid students, for example, in:

correct referencing practices.
paraphrasing, summarising, essay writing, and time management.
appropriate use of, and attribution for, a range of materials including text, images, formulae, and concepts.
Individual assistance is available on request from The Learning Centre.

Students are also reminded that careful time management is an important part of study and one of the identified causes of plagiarism is poor time management.

Students should allow sufficient time for research, drafting, and the proper referencing of sources in preparing all assessment items.

* Based on that proposed to the University of Newcastle by the St James Ethics Centre. Used with kind permission from the University of Newcastle Adapted with kind permission from the University of Melbourne.

Use of Generative AI Tools

For this assignment, students are expected to independently analyse the selected website, identify usability issues, and propose appropriate design solutions based on their own understanding and critical evaluation. The use of generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT or similar systems) to analyse the website, identify usability problems, generate solutions, or structure the substantive content of the report is strictly prohibited. This assignment assesses your ability to apply human-computer interaction principles and conduct your own usability analysis. Generative AI may only be used for minor language support, such as refining sentence clarity, improving structure, or correcting grammar and spelling after you have written the report yourself. Any misuse of generative AI beyond these limited purposes will be treated as a breach of academic integrity and handled in accordance with the university’s plagiarism and misconduct policies.

7. Learning Outcomes

• Apply your understanding of the heuristics, design principles and visual design to formally evaluate the usability and user experience goals of an interface.

• Apply your knowledge of adaptive interface design to evaluate the website and adapt it for smaller screens.

• Apply your knowledge of accessibility to evaluate the accessibility limitations of a website.

• Identify both positive and negative aspects of design.

• Understand how the design of a system is influenced by the intended audience.

• To understand the practical issues of real-world interface design and evaluation.

Appendix A

Design Principles	Heuristics	Usability Goals	Some User Experience Goals
Structure and layout	Match between system and the real world	Effectiveness	Satisfying
Affordance	User Control and Freedom	Efficiency	Enjoyable
Visibility	Consistency and Standards	Safety	Fun
Feedback	Help users recognise, diagnose and recover from errors	Utility	Entertaining
Constraints	Error Prevention	Learnability	Helpful
Mapping	Recognition rather than recall	Memorability	Motivating
Consistency	Flexibility and Efficiency of Use		Aesthetically pleasing
	Aesthetic and minimalist design		Frustrating
	Help and Documentation		Boring
	Visibility of System Status		Rewarding
			Annoying

You can find detailed definitions of these design principles, user experience goals,usability goals and heuristics in your textbook (Sharp et al., 2019):

• For Design Principles: Section 1.7.3 (p26-32) in Interaction Design (Sharp et al., 2019)

• For User Experience Goals: Table 1.1 (p22) in Interaction Design (Sharp et al., 2019)

• More information on User experience Goals: Section 1.7.2 (p22-26) in Interaction Design (Sharp et al., 2019)

• For Usability Goals: Section 1.7.1 (p19-22) in Interaction Design (Sharp et al., 2019)

• For Heuristics: Section 16.2.1 (p550-560) in Interaction Design (Sharp et al., 2019)

• Accessibility and Inclusiveness 1.6 (p17-18) in Interaction Design (Sharp et al., 2019)

• Also, review these lectures: Week 1 (Design Principles), Week 2 (Visual Design, and adaptive interface Design) and (Accessibility)

Appendix B

Please use the following Issues Table format to present the issues you have found in your selected website

Issue table
Reference	Severity	+/-	Principle	Description	Effects on the usability goals	Effects on the user experience goals	Screenshot
1	3	Negative	Consistency (Design Principles)	The link text colours are completely different in different pages of the website which makes the user unsure ,if they provide the same function.	Learnability and memorability	Annoying Frustrating
2		Positive	Match between system and the real world (Heuristics)	The shopping cart icon is a trolley that is similar to a real-world trolley. This allows the user to connect the icon its function, purchasing their items.	Learnability	Helpful
3		Positive	Flexibility and Efficiency of Use (Heuristics)	There is a quick purchase feature without the need to create a new account and login to the system preventing any unnecessary steps and streamlining the process.	Efficiency	Satisfying Helpful
…

Reference: Choose how you would like to number or reference your issues
Severity:

0 = Not a usability issue (a technical bug)

1 = Cosmetic issue (fix if there is time)

2 = Minor issue (should fix)

3 = Major issue (must fix)

4 = Showstopper (cannot release until fixed)

+/-: Positive or negative, can use a + or a – to denote

For positive issues, the severity can be defined by considering the potential absence of the positive usability point that you mentioned. In other

words, you should evaluate how important the feature is and how it can impact users if the website doesn't provide it.COMP3511/9511 – Human Computer Interaction

Appendix C

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How should I annotate my screenshots?

Use Microsoft Word, Paint, or any other image annotation tool.

2. Can I include multiple issues of the same principle/heuristic in the issues table?

Yes, identifying multiple instances of the same principle/heuristic is acceptable. However, including a variety demonstrates a more thorough analysis. Aim for a diverse range to showcase your critical thinking skills.

3. How should I make the design solution sketches?

Choose your preferred method: hand-sketching, prototyping tools like Figma, or modifying screenshots.

4. How many pages should I write to get a high distinction?

Focus on Quality: The length of your assignment doesn't impact your grade. We prioritise the quality of your analysis.

5. Are you free to modify the structure of the assignment? For example, start with the issue table then add the other headings? Or add screenshots inside the table or outside the table as an appendix?

Feel free to modify the structure. You can start with the issue table and add other sections later or vice versa.

For example: If you prefer not to include the screenshots in the table, you can put them in an appendix and just add the image number in the issues table.

6. Is it OK if we talk about positive or negative issues? Should there be a balance?

Aim for a combination of positive and negative aspects of the website's design. It's okay to lean towards one side, but you should discuss both for a well-rounded analysis.

7. Can I add pictures within the table, or should I add them as an appendix?

Your Choice: You can incorporate images with the table or within the main document or add them as an appendix.

8. Will I lose marks if I go over or below the page limit?

Going below the page limit will not result in any deductions. Up to 15% above the page limit is acceptable.

9. Should I focus more on design principles or visual designs?

Prioritise whichever aspect (design principles or visual design) is more relevant to your chosen website. You can discuss both equally or focus more on the prominent element identified.

10. How many issues should I cover in the issue table to get high distinction?

Quality over Quantity: The number of issues isn't a strict metric. We aim for a comprehensive analysis. You might combine related issues for better organisation.

11. How long should each section of the assignment be?

Quality over Quantity: The number of words and the length of each section are not important. The depth of analysis and the quality will be marked.

12. Should you write just usability issues or the visual design principles in the issue table?

You should write both.

13. Should you explain the process of completing the tasks that you want to use to analyse the website?

No, you don't need to have a separate section for this. However, in the analysis section, if you think it can support your critical analysis, you can provide a sentence. For example, when we tried to make a donation, we couldn't find X feature.

14. Is there any specific template for the cover page?

No, just write your name, zID, your tutor's name, and your class time.

15. Can we analyse a foreign website that is in English, or should we only analyse Australian websites?

As long as the website is related to legal information or consumer rights, that's fine. If you're not sure about the selected website, you can ask your tutor's opinion in your tutorial.

Please don't post it on Moodle, as this is private and should be discussed directly with your tutor.

16. Can we copy a part of our assignment text on Moodle to get the lecturer's or tutor's ,opinions?

No, it is against university policy to share your assignment with the entire class.

17. Can we show our assignment to the tutor or lecturer before the deadline to get feedback so that we can improve the assignment?

No, but if you have any questions about the assignment instructions or the course content that can help you with the assignment, you can post them on the course forum or ask your ,tutor in class.

18. Should you take a separate screenshot for each issue, or can you use the same ,screenshot if it shows multiple issues?

You don't need to take separate screenshots if you can cover different issues with one screenshot. Just annotate the issues accordingly.

19. Should you have two separate tables, one for visual design and another for design principles, or can you have just one table?

It's up to you.

20. Should accessibility and adaptive interface design issues be added to the issue table?

No.

21. How should you present the severity in the issue table? Should you use a numerical range such as 1-5 or words such as 'low,' 'medium,' and 'high' to explain the severity?

It's up to you, but if you choose to use numbers, don't forget to include a legend to explain their meaning.

22. Should I analyse the entire website or specific pages?

You should focus on analysing the main parts of the website that provide key functionalities. If there are pages that are similar to each other and share similar usability issues, you can use your own judgment to decide whether to include them.

23. Can we use Generative AI to do the assignment?

• You may use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or DeepSeek only to refine your own writing—for example, to improve grammar, sentence clarity, or structure.

• However, using generative AI to perform the core tasks of the assignment—such as analysis, sketching, or generating content that forms the main part of the submission—is strictly prohibited and will be treated as plagiarism.

• If your submission shows a high level of similarity to AI-generated content, your tutors may ask you to provide the AI chat history as evidence of how the tools were used.