UX Trivia Quiz #3 Answers

If you want to try the quiz, it can be found here: http://www.quiz-maker.com/Q4Q3GG6

Overall, 236 people completed this quiz (as of 4/14/17). On the average, they got 4.1 questions right out of 10.

Here's a breakdown by question:

What's the name of this keyboard layout?

Answer: Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. 61% got this right. This keyboard was developed by Dr. August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, Dr. William Dealey. Proponents claim the layout requires less finger motion and reduces errors compared to the standard QWERTY layout.

Who is this UX pioneer, a professor and author of the books, Designing the User Interface and Leonardo's Laptop?

Answer: Ben Shneidermani. 55% got this right. Ben Shneiderman is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland. Two of his influential books include Designing the User Interface: Effective Strategies for Human-Computer Interaction and Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies.

Here's a picture of the first computer mouse. Who invented it?

Answer: Doug Engelbart. 62% got this right. Doug Engelbart invented the computer mouse, patenting it in 1970. He called it a mouse because the wire coming out the back reminded him of the rodent, and the name stuck.

According to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, what minimum color contrast is required for text less than 18 points, for level AA compliance?
Answer: 4.5:1. Only 38% got this right. WCAG Section 1.4.3 specifies that text less than 18 points must have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 (text color relative to background color). A number of contrast checkers are available online, such as this one from WebAIM.

Who created these iconic designs?

Answer: Milton Glaser. 43% got this right. Milton Glaser is an American graphic designer, responsible for the "I ❤ NY" logo and the psychedelic Bob Dylan poster, among many other designs.

Who's the creator of the System Usability Scale (SUS)?
Answer: John Brooke. 34% got this right. John Brooke developed the System Usability Scale (SUS) while at Digital Equipment Corporation in 1986. It is a simple, ten-item Likert scale giving an overall view of the perceived usability of a system. It is a popular tool for assessing perceived usability.

In a UX context, what does BERT stand for?
Answer: Bipolar Emotional Response Testing. 21% got this right. BERT stands for Bipolar Emotional Response Testing, which involves asking respondents for a series of ratings on bipolar scales (e.g., "Friendly - Intimidating") of their emotional reactions to something.

When was the menu button shown below, also called the Hamburger Menu or Pancake Menu, first introduced?

Answer: 1981. Only 14% got this right. This is perhaps a bit of a trick question since this menu is widely associated with today's mobile apps, but it was actually introduced in 1981 on the Xerox Star.

Assume you did an online usability study with 500 participants and got a frequency distribution of times for one task as shown below. The median is 21 seconds. What will the mean be, relative to the median?

Answer: More than 21 seconds. 36% got this right. As is commonly the case with time data, this distribution is positively skewed, meaning that there is a significant tail to the right. In a situation like this, the mean will be "pulled" toward the tail. In this example, the actual mean is 28 seconds.

Who wrote the book, The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, first published in 1983?
Answer: Stuart Card, Tom Moran, and Allen Newell. 48% got this right. As Card, Moran, and Newell stated, "Our purpose in this book is to help lay a scientific foundation for an applied psychology concerned with the human users of interactive computer systems." (Book on Amazon).

Updated April 14, 2017.

Comments, suggestions for future questions, etc: TomTullis (at) gmail.com