Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Mobile Application Software Usability Evaluation: Issues, Methods and Future Research Directions

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Information and Communication Technology and Applications (ICTA 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1350))

  • 1097 Accesses

Abstract

Recently, the growth and advancement in mobile technology (such as mobile devices, smartphones, mobile wireless networks) have cushioned everyday lives of peoples across the globe. Interestingly, this can be attributed to the greater ease of developing mobile applications for diverse usages such as healthcare, finance, and agriculture. Another reason for this is that, there is the quest to rollout mobile device tailored application software having lower budget, quicker time of delivery, and top-quality product from the developers and the end-user’s perspectives. The challenges of appropriate designs frameworks; and the understanding of the needs of users (that is, the end users) have persisted long after their eventual rollouts. The concept of mobile app usability and accessibility evaluation were developed to enable developers to ascertain the level of usages and relevance of mobile applications in-use or prior release under diverse criteria such as maintainability, understandability, comprehensibility, as well as parameters specified by Usability Standards of ISO 9241-11 (that is, effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction). This study undertakes a systematic literature review (SLR) to discuss the subject of mobile application software usability under the specific scope of issues, methods and future research directions. To achieve these, a total of forty (40) peer-reviewed articles from diverse databases/sources of records were selected. The outcomes of this study revealed that, mobile applications usability evaluations and processes are domain-specific (or locality-dependent). Also, there are no generic approaches identified or developed for performing usability and accessibility of mobile applications due to the non-deterministic nature of the domain, and context-of-use.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Weichbroth, P.: Usability of mobile applications: a systematic literature study. IEEE Access 8, 55563–55577 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Swaid, S.I., Suid, T.Z.: Usability of mobile apps: an integrated approach usability heuristics for M-commerce apps. In: International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, pp. 79–88 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Sereda, M., Smith, S., Newton, K., Stockdale, D.: Mobile apps for management of tinnitus: users’ survey, quality assessment, and content analysis. JMIR mHeakth uHealth 7(1), e10353 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Gupta, D., Ahlawat, A.K., Sagar, K.: Usability prediction & ranking of SDLC models using fuzzy hierarchical usability model. Open Eng. 7(1), 161–168 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Evans, S.H., Clarke, P., Glovinsky, J.: A consumer health app works well. but, diffusion is not so easy. J. Technol. Behav. Sci. 5(2), 164–170 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Dur, M.A.: Usability heuristics for mobile applications a systematic review. In: ICEIS, pp. 978–989 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Hoehle, H., Venkatesh, V.: Mobile application usability: conceptualization and instrument development. MIS Q. 39(2), 435–472 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Hussain, A., Mkpojiogu, E.O.C., Jamaludin, N.H., Moh, S.T.L.: A usability evaluation of Lazada mobile application. In: AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 1891, no. 1, pp. 020059 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Weichbroth, P.: A mixed-methods measurement and evaluation methodology for mobile application usability studies. Architecture 43(44), 45 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  10. ISO, W. 9241–11.: Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs). The international organization for standardization, vol. 45 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Joyce, G., Lilley, M., Barker, T., Jefferies, A.: Mobile application usability heuristics: decoupling context-of-use. In: Marcus, A., Wang, W. (eds.) DUXU 2017. LNCS, vol. 10288, pp. 410–423. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58634-2_30

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Islam, M.N., Bouwman, H., Islam, A.K.M.N.: Evaluating web and mobile user interfaces with semiotics: an empirical study. IEEE Access 8, 84396–84414 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Sagar, K., Saha, A.: Qualitative usability feature selection with ranking: a novel approach for ranking the identified usability problematic attributes for academic websites using data-mining techniques. Hum. Centric Comput. Inf. Sci. 7(1), 29 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Bessghaier, N., Soui, M.: Towards usability evaluation of hybrid mobile user interfaces. In: 2017 IEEE/ACS 14th International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications, pp. 895–900 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Weichbroth, P.: Delivering usability in IT products: empirical lessons from the field. Int. J. Softw. Eng. Knowl. Eng. 28(07), 1027–1045 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Msweli, N.T., Mawela, T.: Enablers and barriers for mobile commerce and banking services among the elderly in developing countries: a systematic review. In: Conference on e-Business, e-Services and e-Society, pp. 319–330 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Tavakoli, M., Zhao, L., Heydari, A., Nenadi, G.: Extracting useful software development information from mobile application reviews: a survey of intelligent mining techniques and tools. Expert Syst. Appl. 113, 186–199 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. ISO.: ISO/IEC 9126-1:2001 Software engineering – Product quality- Part 1: Quality model. ISO/IEC JTC 1/ SC 7 Software and systems engineering, vol. 25 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  19. ISO.: ISO/DIS 9241-171:2008 Ergonomics of Human-System Interaction – Part 171: Guidance on software Accessibility. Technical report, International Organization for Standardization (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Radatz, J., Geraci, A., Katki, F.: IEEE standard glossary of software engineering terminology. IEEE Std. 610.12-1990. Computer Society of the IEEE (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  21. European Union.: Directive (EU) 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Nathan, S.S., Hussain, A., Hashim, N.L.: Usability evaluation of DEAF mobile application interface: a systematic review. J. Eng. Appl. Sci. 13(2), 291–297 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Arnhold, M., Quade, M., Kirch, W., Arnhold, M.: Mobile applications for diabetics: a systematic review and expert-based usability evaluation considering the special requirements of diabetes patients age 50 years or older. J. Med. Internet Res. 16(4), e104 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Shah, U.M., Chiew, T.K.: A systematic literature review of the design approach and usability evaluation of the pain management mobile applications. Symmetry 11(3), 400 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Medina, J.L.P., Acosta-Vargas, P., Rybarczyk, Y.: A systematic literature review of usability and accessibility in tele-rehabilitation systems. In: Assistive and Rehabilitation Engineering. IntechOpen, pp. 1–20 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Harrison, R., Flood, D., Duce, D.: A systematic literature review of usability and accessibility in tele-rehabilitation systems. J. Interact. Sci. 1, 1–16 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Shitkova, M., Holler, J., Heide, T., Clever, N., Becker, J.: Towards usability guidelines for mobile websites and applications. In: Proceedings of 2015 Wirtschaftsinformatik, vol. 107, pp. 1603–1617 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Kaur, A., Kaur, K.: Systematic literature review of mobile application development and testing effort estimation. J. King Saud Univ. Comput. Inf. Sci. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2018.11.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Weichbroth, P., Baj-rogowska, A.: Do online reviews reveal mobile application usability and user experience? The case of WhatsApp. In: Proceedings of the Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, vol. 18, pp. 747–754 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Jha, S., et al.: Deep learning approach for software maintainability metrics prediction. IEEE Access 7, 61840–61855 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Da Costa, R.P., Canedo, E.D., De Sousa, R.T., Albuquerque, R.D.O., Villalba, L.J.G.: Set of usability heuristics for quality assessment of mobile applications on smartphones. IEEE Access 7, 116145–116161 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Genc-nayebi, N., Abran, A.: A systematic literature review: opinion mining studies from mobile app store user reviews. J. Syst. Softw. 125, 207–219 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzla, J., Altman, D.G.: Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Ann. Intern. Med. 151(4), 264–269 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Kitchenham, B., Charters, S.: Guidelines for Performing Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering. Software Engineering Group, Keele (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Kaur, A., Kaur, K.: Suitability of existing software development life cycle (SDLC) in context of mobile application development life cycle (MADLC). Int. J. Comput. Appl. 116(19), 1–6 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Khowaja, K., Al-Thani, D., Aqle, A., Banire, B.: Accessibility or usability of the user interfaces for visually impaired users? A comparative study. In: Antona, M., Stephanidis, C. (eds.) HCII 2019. LNCS, vol. 11572, pp. 268–283. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23560-4_20

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  37. Behnamghader, P., Boehm, B.: Towards better understanding of software maintainability evolution. In: Adams, S., Beling, Peter A., Lambert, James H., Scherer, William T., Fleming, Cody H. (eds.) Systems Engineering in Context, pp. 593–603. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00114-8_47

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  38. Reddy, B.R., Ojha, A.: Performance of maintainability index prediction models: a feature selection based study. Evol. Syst. 10(2), 179–204 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12530-017-9201-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Liu, X., Ai, W.E.I., Li, H., Tang, J., Huang, G., Feng, F., Mei, Q.: Deriving user preferences of mobile apps from their management activities. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 35(4), 1–32 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Saleh, A.M., Ismail, R.B.: Usability evaluation frameworks of mobile application: a mini-systematic literature review. In: Global Summit on Education, pp. 1–10 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Nur, M., Sulaiman, S., Aman, S.: Heuristic evaluation: comparing generic and specific usability heuristics for identification of usability problems in a living museum mobile guide app. In: Advances in Human-Computer Interaction (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Feiner, J., et al.: A new approach to visualise accessibility problems of mobile apps in source code. In: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information System, vol. 2, pp. 519–526 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Adewumi, A.O., Omoregbe, N.A., Misra, S.: Usability evaluation of mobile access to institutional repository. Int. J. Pharm. Tech. 8(4), 22892–22905 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria

    Blessing Iganya Attah, John Kolo Alhassan, Ishaq Oyebisi Oyefolahan & Sulaimon Adebayo Bashir

Authors
  1. Blessing Iganya Attah
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. John Kolo Alhassan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ishaq Oyebisi Oyefolahan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sulaimon Adebayo Bashir
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Blessing Iganya Attah .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  2. Federal University of Technology Minna, Minna, Nigeria

    Bilkisu Muhammad-Bello

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Attah, B.I., Alhassan, J.K., Oyefolahan, I.O., Bashir, S.A. (2021). Mobile Application Software Usability Evaluation: Issues, Methods and Future Research Directions. In: Misra, S., Muhammad-Bello, B. (eds) Information and Communication Technology and Applications. ICTA 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1350. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69143-1_43

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69143-1_43

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-69142-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-69143-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation