1. (a) collection of random objects, used to stimulate creative thinking.
(b) Get all parties to think about the problem, then introduce the tray to stimulate discussion – get people to think about form, function, colour, texture – whatever is appropriate, based on things in the tray. Items in the tray can also be used to prompt people about events or situations which can then feed into the discussion – the main aim is to generate ideas, discussion, debate and so on.
(c) Outputs: list of ideas, discussion points, plus counter-ideas and so on. May have a chosen set of preferred alternatives, but all things created are recorded. Probably in the form of handwritten notes, tidied up word-processed notes, diagrams, and maybe photos of whiteboard or similar.
2. Main components:
Answer should then give brief description of each part.
3. (a) testing of an interactive systems against some criteria (the heuristics) done by experts
(b) used to identify usability problems, difficulties in performing tasks, etc. with a system – often done in the prototype stages to feed back into design improvements.
(c) Any of Neilsen’s heuristics, or related ones. Note it says list, so you only need to list them. If it says explain, or discuss, then you’d need fuller information on them.
4. Inner conceptual picture of the world and how it works. Used to develop metaphors, to support learning through scaffolding, for problem solving (one or more of these acceptable in different levels of detail). Should take about 20 mins to write about.
5. Can answer this question with either lots of small points, or in-depth into fewer. Note that small screens and limited processing power are explicitly mentioned so they must be tackled.
Small screens – some from: use one-window drilldown for menu navigation (like on most mobile phones, where you go from one screen to the next by chosing options on that screen); use recognised icons; use soft keys to give access to critical items; use context-aware systems to provide direct access to relevant stuff; etc. etc.
Limited processing power: use storage on phone rather than computing things; use connection to servers to do processing; do non-compute intensive tasks; etc. etc.