An Expert-Based Framework for Evaluating iOS Application Usability

Abstract

Mobile applications are gaining in popularity because of the significant advantages of mobile devices, such as portability, location awareness, electronic identity, and an integrated camera. However, these devices have a number of disadvantages in terms of usability, like limited resources and small screen size. Evaluating the usability of applications developed for mobile operating systems is a very important step in addressing these disadvantages and achieving success in mobile application markets, such as Apple's App Store. Usability evaluation must be tailored to all the various mobile operating systems in use, as they each have their own particular characteristics. This paper presents a mobile application usability evaluation framework for one of the most popular mobile operating systems, iOS. A set of questions is defined and applied to evaluate the usability of eleven applications available at the App Store.