The main topic of my grid is Sport Cars. I originally thought of using the general topic of vehicles but decide to do a specific class. With sport cars I used the attributes which classify a vehicle as a sports car. Theseattributes are: Engine, Suspension, Tires, Body Style, Doors, Color. I rate these attributes according to the importance they have in making a car a sports car. In the grid I rate those attributes which effect the performance higher than those which affect the appearence. For instance engine would recieve a rating of 1 and body color a rating of 5.
My first impression of Web Grid was "Huh?", but after reading "Comparing Constructions through the Web" thought I understood it a little better. Only to realize that I didn't have a clue when I tried it. Once I analysed the results it suddenly came to me as to what was happening. The second attempt went much better and with minimal tweeking it was done.
The grid can be viewed here
For this part we had to create our own construct from Brian Gaines's grid and then do a comparsion of ours to Brian's. The grid was constructed from our class lecture topics.
The construct I built for this section of assignment involved these 3 elements: Cross-platform GUIs, Digital Libraries, Visual Programming. Of the 3, I said that Digital Libraries was different that the other 2. This was because Gui's and Visual Programming are tools that are used to program computers and Libraries are tools used to store documents. The construct names I used to describe them were Data Base and Programming. I then rated the other topics and according to these descriptions.
To compare my constructs I first select the the compare button to show the systems comparision. Brain used the terms Application and Development Tool compared to my terms Data Base and Programming. I feel that though the terms are different they do have fairly similar meanings, this is called Corraspondence. Along with the terms, we had to rate 10 elements according to these term. The rating was from 1 to 5, 1 was Data Base/Application and 5 was Programming/Development Tool. Of the 10, we rated 5 of them the same.(See the table for comparisons)
| # of Elements | Value Difference | Comments |
| Same Rating | ||
| Differed by 1 | ||
| Differed by 2 | ||
| Differed by 3 |
The comparision given by the system showed the elements, which differed by 2 or more value points, as significantly different. This gives roughly a 70% Corraspondence rate.
The grid can be viewed here
For the third and final part of this assignment we had to create a grid
based on our class presentation topic. The topic for my class presentation
is New Technology: Human Factors. I selected the Ergononmic aspect of this
area. Ergonomics includes many different things, but it is generally
the environmemt surrounding and including the the computer. This grid is then
based on different aspects of ergonomics.
Here is a list of Elements:
Exercize
Breaks
Chair
Lighting
Monitor
Mouse
KeyBoard
Here is a list of Constructs:
Computer Factor -- Other Factor
Environmental Factor -- Personal Factor
Expensive -- Inexpensive
To analyse this grid I used 2 different tools, Focus and PrinCom. The Focus
tool placed the grid's information into a table. This information was
organized into similar elements and constructs. Focus then highlighted the
major differences in the table. The PrinCom tool worked on a different
principle. It displayed the results on a graph. This graph had 4 quadrants.
The constructs intersect in the middle of the graph, with each pair in opposing
quadrants. The elements were points in the different quadrants. The graph
showed the different relationships.
Focus
When the Focus tool was used on this grid it came up with some unexpected
results. For the Constructs it placed Personal factor closer to Inexpensive,
where I thought it should be closer to Other Factor. The graph it created for
the elements was exactly the way I would of made it. Focus distinguished the
major difference between Exercise/Breaks from the the other elements. It also
made the distinction between lighting and the objects directly involved with
using the computer. I thought Focus did a very good analysis of the grid.
PrinCom
The graph displayed for the grid was a little unexpected. It showed the
constructs Personal Factor and Inexpensive as being related, Other Factor
as being different. The elements were divided into appropriate quardants.
It did, however place Exercise and Breaks in different quadrants, but they were
close together. It recognized that lighting was different from the other
elements. PrinCom also realized that Chair was different from
Mouse/Monitor/Keyboard, which was excellent. Mouse, Monitor and Keyboard
were placed in their own quadrant. The elements were broken down nicely,
however the construct weren't analyzed perfectly.
The grid can be viewed here
Back to My Cpsc 547 Home Page
Created by Robert Loeppky
Last Updated on Mar 25, 1996