CIS 524 Discussion Responses

PF Question:

How does user empowerment relate to the Mandel criteria for user interfaces?

 JN’s post states the following:Top of Form

Greetings Class,

    As a software development company delivering services to a customer, it is vital to ensure the delivered product will meet the user needs. It should also make the user's job easier and simpler. A command line tool does not do this, it must be interacted with and could cause some serious errors from typos and other type of mistakes. Direct manipulation is more of user interface with a "point and click/touch interaction" with objects. This is often much easier to work with and can be extremely simple to learn. Although it might looks better and also only allow the required actions, a company could find it more secure than direct manipulation; since the command line is being removed from the user. (Sherugar, S., & Budiu, R., 2016) The best route is to build a GUI/DM interface which can easily be learned and worked that removes the possibility for errors and needing a more advanced user. 

   Virtual reality is a where a user leaves the real world and interacts with a digital environment through the use of headsets. Augmented reality is where a user experiences virtual (fake) objects on the real world. Mixed reality is newer type of reality which brings interaction with virtual objects into play with the real world where virtual objects change or manipulate based on the interaction. (Marr, B., 2019) An example of way this technology could be used in the future to improve a function would be surgeons learning to operate, through the use of mixed reality a surgeon could practice on a virtual subject in order to ensure they are doing the procedure properly. They could then play it back to verify that what occurred truly happened and would be a great training tool.

-John

References: Marr, B. (2019, July 19). The Important Difference Between Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/07/19/the-important-difference-between-virtual-reality-augmented-reality-and-mixed-reality/#44b8ea7135d3

Sherugar, S., & Budiu, R. (2016, August 21). Direct Manipulation: Definition. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/direct-manipulation/

NM’s post states the following:Top of Form

Good Evening Classmates and Professor,

· Your software development company has been contracted to build a tool that will manage user accounts and rights in an Active Directory environment. One of your developers tells you that he wants the tool to make use of direct manipulation. A second developer argues that a command line structure would be a better and more secure approach.  Take a stand on this argument, providing at least three positives of each approach, and then make a decision for this project and support it.

Active Directory environment can be done from the Graphical User Interface (GUI), but the commands available from a command prompt can be very powerful and can save you time. Command line is more secure because you have to run it in elevated mode, As Administrator, and you must be in administrative group(s) to run the commands. 

Also you can use PowerShell which is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language. Windows PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language designed especially for system administration. ... Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell helps IT professionals to control and automate the administration of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows Server environment. By command lines having simple design means there is better security.

Direct manipulation takes a lot longer than command lines and is equated to WYSIWYGs.  With Direct manipulation, repetitive tasks are not well supported.

The positives of direct approach is as follows:

1. Easy to learn for the user and easy for users to retain what they have learned.

2. Also with the direct manipulation approach, it presents tasks concepts visually (GUI)

3. It encourages exploration – make users want to explore the interface.

The positive command line structure

1. Scalability –handles scalability easy and quickly. Allows a single action to be taken to achieve results over large numbers of discrete tasks.

2. Simple design –simplicity yields security

3. Has a simpler interface – it doesn’t rely on menus or buttons to get tasks done

For this project, to build a tool that will manage user accounts and rights in an Active Directory environment, I would use command line, power shell and GPOs instead of direct manipulation because command lines are more scalable.  You can have more control using command lines, capable of multitasking by joining syntax just can’t see it and faster performance with just the use of a keyboard and lastly, command line uses a lot less resources and command line doesn’t change as much as GUIs does/can. Programmers lean more towards Command Lines and with building a tool, it is best to stick with command lines.