A Protocol for Evaluating Mobile Applications

Background

Mobile devices are hand-held tools, which typically have a graphical display with input via touch, stylus, miniature keyboard, or some combination of these methods. Examples include Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), traditional mobile phones, smart phones, music players such as the iPod Touch and tablet computers such as the iPad and Kindle Fire. The study of the usability and design issues associated with such devices is still in its infancy, since they are very different from desktop computers both in terms of interaction mechanisms and other attributes such as context, connectivity, screen size, display resolution and processing capability (Zhang, et al., 2005). The major platform providers (including Apple and Google) have produced extensive guidelines (Apple, 2012; Android, 2012) for developers of mobile applications, and there are also recent independent guidelines that focus specifically on improving the user experience (Nielsen, 2012). However, previous research suggests that current techniques for the evaluation of such technology lack structure and that there is a need for a systematic approach using a combination of methods, particularly because no single technique can give answers to all design questions (Streefkerk, et al., 2008).