Usability of mobile applications: literature review and rationale for a new usability model

Abstract

The usefulness of mobile devices has increased greatly in recent years allowing users to perform more tasks in a mobile context. This increase in usefulness has come at the expense of the usability of these devices in some contexts. We conducted a small review of mobile usability models and found that usability is usually measured in terms of three attributes; effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Other attributes, such as cognitive load, tend to be overlooked in the usability models that are most prominent despite their likely impact on the success or failure of an application. To remedy this we introduces the PACMAD (People At the Centre of Mobile Application Development) usability model which was designed to address the limitations of existing usability models when applied to mobile devices. PACMAD brings together significant attributes from different usability models in order to create a more comprehensive model. None of the attributes that it includes are new, but the existing prominent usability models ignore one or more of them. This could lead to an incomplete usability evaluation. We performed a literature search to compile a collection of studies that evaluate mobile applications and then evaluated the studies using our model.

Evaluating M?Commerce Systems Success: Measurement and Validation of the DeLone and McLean Model of IS Success in Arabic Society (GCC Case Study)

“…Providing individual attention to every customer and ensuring documentation of these cases is helpful to technical support departments for investigating and analysing the parts of the system that regularly report major problems (Harrison et al, 2013;Cui et al, 2014). Additionally, the Ability to be able to document any relevant information perfectly and utilise this information during the analytical process is also required (Harrison et al, 2013;Cui et al, 2014).…”

Contextual Requirements for Mobile Native Applications

“…2) Based on Preferences: The user context parameters according to the preferences of the user based on certain aspects of the mobile apps are effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction and memorability [21]. The effectiveness shows the ability of a user to access the information in a particular context.…”

Usability evaluation model for mobile e-book applications

“…2. Effectiveness: Effectiveness is the ability in which the users can accomplish tasks by using the system, and the quality that can come from the outputs after accomplishing those tasks [3]. 3.…”

“…It also assesses the methods that have been used to enhance ease of usage through the design process [4,20]. Usability is one of the quality aspects that have been facing challenges in mobile devices due to the portability of the devices [3,21].…”

“…In U.S alone, the rise in e-book reading among adults has gone up from 17% in 2011 to 28% in 2016 [2]. Notably, mobile devices' usefulness has greatly increased over the past few years [3]; and mobile users are becoming more dependent in their communication and lifestyle [4]. Subsequently, mobile phone devices have become another essential reading platform [5].…”