Paper Info
Title
Exploring the benefits of the combination of a software architecture analysis and a usability evaluation of a mobile application
Abstract
Designing easy to use mobile applications is a difficult task. In order to optimize the development of a usable mobile application, it is necessary to consider the mobile usage context for the design and the evaluation of the user-system interaction of a mobile application. In our research we designed a method that aligns the inspection method ''Software ArchitecTure analysis of Usability Requirements realizatioN'' SATURN and a mobile usability evaluation in the form of a user test. We propose to use mobile context factors and thus requirements as a common basis for both inspection and user test. After conducting both analysis and user test, the results described as usability problems are mapped and discussed. The mobile context factors identified define and describe the usage context of a mobile application. We exemplify and apply our approach in a case study. This allows us to show how our method can be used to identify more usability problems than with each method separately. Additionally, we could confirm the validity and identified the severity of usability problems found by both methods. Our work presents how a combination of both methods allows to address usability issues in a more holistic way. We argue that the increased quantity and quality of results can lead to a reduction of the number of iterations required in early stages of an iterative software development process.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1016/j.jss.2010.03.079
Journal of Systems and Software
Keywords
DocType
Volume
software architecture analysis,usability problem,usability evaluation,user test,usability issue,mobile usage context,usable mobile application,human–computer interaction,mobile context factor,inspection method,mobile usability evaluation,mobile application,software engineering,usage context,human computer interaction,software development process
Journal
83
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
11
The Journal of Systems & Software
25
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.82
37
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Bettina Biel1587.46
Thomas Grill29210.02
volker gruhn31584221.96