Instructions

This assignment is intended to help you explore the impact of the concepts about cognition that you are covering in this module by applying them to an example. In it, you will consider applications or websites that you currently use and how they illustrate various aspect of cognition that you are studying. For this assignment, you will compare examples of tools intended to serve the same purpose (for example, banking, purchasing books, checking the weather, etc.).

For your write-up

Identify an application or website that you currently use and at least one contrasting example of an application or website that is/are intended to achieve the same purpose. Provide information about the goal of the type of application or website and give a brief description about each example (including URLs where appropriate).

(Please use the ebay.com and amazon.com websites.)

Discuss the interfaces and their differences. What is your overall impression of each one based on the interface? What are the design implications for attention and perception? In what ways does one of your examples do a better job than the other(s)? For the one(s) that dont do as good a job, what might be the reason they were designed that way?

Discuss the concepts of gulf of evaluation and gulf of execution as they relate to your application/interface examples.

As relevant to your examples, consider other cognition concepts introduced in this module such as memory, distributed cognition, and external cognition.

Subject: Human-Computer Interaction