Research On Computable Model For Usability Of Mobile Applications

With the rapid development of Mobile Internet technology, smart phones and mobile applications have been inseparable parts of our life. People ask for high user experience of mobile applications, rather than basic functions and contents. As the essence of user experience, usability involves effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction that users feel. At present, research on usability of mobile applications is still in the initial stage and research methods are not rich. Development of theories has been far behind the technology and functions. Supported by the Key Technologies Research and Development Program of China, this paper does a deep research on the mobile application usability and develops a hierarchical model of usability computing of mobile applications.On the basis of brief review of current research status of usability quantization of mobile applications, this paper introduces usability model based on ISO standard and that raised by Nielsen. We describes in detail of the work theory and steps of the Analytic Hierarchy Process and Factor Analysis, followed by a usability research framework in the future.Based on the differences and similarities of researches all around the world, we raise several metrics. Then we make a survey on users and get the statistical data. After validity and reliability test, we carry out the Factor Analysis on the metrics. We apply the principal component analysis as the extraction methods and the maximum variance sum as the rotation methods. The results include six mutually orthogonal dimensions, which are quality of interaction, visibility of pivotal status, conciseness, consistency, affinity and low consuming, We further analysis the difference between mobile application usability and traditional usability, impacts of resources, and the dimension influences.Combining the results of Factor Analysis and the definition of the ISO standard, we raised the hierarchical model of mobile usability. Based on the model, we ask some experts to build fuzzy judgment matrices on every element of the model. Assured by satisfying consistency, we compute the corresponding fuzzy consistent matrices in a specific algorithm, and get single-level ranking and synthesized ranking results, which represent the weights of the element on the hierarchical model. The hierarchical model contains target level, attribute level, dimension level and indicator level.Following the introduction of the computing rules of each metrics, the paper comes out the design of the hierarchical usability computing tool. We focused on the design and implement of the objective data collecting module on the Android system. And finally, we compare the computed results on the WeChat and Yixin based on the hierarchical model. Results show that both of them perform well in term of usability, with just small differences in some aspects.