User need and experience of Hajj mobile and ubiquitous systems: Designing for the largest religious annual gathering

Abstract

The Hajj pilgrimage is one of the largest annual events in the world. Each year, millions of Muslims visit the holy sites in Makkah. While Hajj mobile applications that help pilgrims perform Hajj activities efficiently are gaining popularity, little has been done to investigate pilgrims’ needs and their experiences of these applications. During the 2017 Hajj season, we conducted a study to investigate the needs and experiences of Hajj mobile service users. We used a questionnaire to investigate the need for 20 Hajj mobile features and found that maps (particularly offline maps) were the most needed feature. We also interviewed 16 pilgrims to investigate user experience (UX) of Hajj mobile applications. Three major themes emerged from our qualitative analysis of the perceptions reported by our participants: UX problems with the current mobile applications, the importance level of application features, and opportunities for improving the UX of applications. We relate these themes to specific implications for designing a better UX of mobile applications used for Hajj and its related domain (religion) and to applications for use in similar contexts (e.g., crowd and movement situations).