Last advances in mobile technologies and rapid spread of 3G networks engaged handsets with the Web bringing an instance access to online resources from any place and at any time. However, facilities of mobile devices are not equal to PC (lower screen resolution, performance issues, diversity in geometry of the display and buttons arrangement, etc.) what significantly spoils the user experience. Thus, building a web-based app we need to keep in mind this specific and follow usability rules. In this post we will examine MovieIt in terms of its usability comparing core system characteristics with mobile usability check lists.
* For usability evaluation of our system we used “A Usability Checklist for the Usability Evaluation of Mobile Phone User Interface” proposed by Yong Gu Ji, Jun Ho Park, Cheol Lee and Myung Hwan Yun.
Criteria |
MovieIt |
| Content Mobile users should not be overwhelmed with the content, thus, web site has to provide just necessary information |
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| Layout The user interface must be organized purposefully, in meaningful and useful ways that put related things together and separate unrelated things based on clear, consistent models that are apparent and recognizable to others |
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| Buttons, input fields and other form elements Form elements should show the focus on the selection and have to be easily accessible by keyboard, accessibility tools and other input methods |
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| Consistency The user interface must be designed consistently |
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| Visibility The user interface should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time |
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| Simplicity Make simple, common tasks simple to do, communicate simply in the user’s own language and provide good shortcuts that are meaningfully related to longer procedures |
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| Interaction support feedback The user interface must keep users informed of actions or interpretations, changes of state or condition using clear, concise, and unambiguous language familiar to users |
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| Error indication The representation of errors must be clear to users |
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| Responsiveness The system must respond in an appropriate time |
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| Customizability The user must be able to modify the interface in order to improve efficiency. The customizing features must be easily accessible |
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| Effort The user interface should be designed to minimize the user’s effort for using the system |
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| Flexibility The user interface must be flexible so that adapts to various environments and users |
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Additional testing
One of the major problems of User Interface for mobile phones is a diversity of screen resolutions and display geometry. Another serious issue is incompatibility of web technologies with mobile platforms and browsers (for example, not all mobile browsers support cookies). In order to ensure that MovieIT system works properly on the most common handsets we ran a set of tests using simulators for following devices: iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPad, Blackberry Playbook, Blackberry Tourch, Blackberry Bold 97200, Samsung H1 (touch), HTC Android, Nokia N8 and Nokia 97/5800 (touch). Some screenshots of tested simulators provided below.
Blackberry Bold
Blackberry Touch
Blackberry Playbook
iPhone
HTC Android
Testing results
Simulations revealed that MovieIt system is compatible with all major mobile platforms. Moreover, user interface is displayed properly on all tested devices.
Conclusion
Overall, system has shown itself successfully in the majority of usability evaluation activities. However, there are some drawback as a lack of customization, insufficient feedback in the case of the wrong input and performance issues.