Metric based evaluation of mobile devices : Mobile Goal Question Metric (mGQM)

Hussain, A

Abstract

The constant developments in technology of mobile devices are rapidly increasing the
demand for applications on these devices. In October 2010, there were 300,000 applications
for iPhone available on iTunes store to be downloaded, and as of January 2011, the
application store had over 9.9 billion downloads. Moreover, it is reported that the Blackberry
phone has been used by more than 28 million people in 91 countries. Demand for Android
phones is also increasing and exceeds analysts' expectations. As a result of the rapid evolution
of mobile device development, a new challenge has emerged for application developers; how
to improve the usability of mobile applications. This research examines usability issues of
mobile devices, and proposes a metric based model which may be used to evaluate
applications on mobile devices.
A number of evaluation methods and tools are readily available to examine software usability.
However usability measures that are specifically intended for mobile devices are very limited
indeed. Limitations on current measures to evaluate mobile applications include 1) Their
ability to generalize to other domains, 2) The focus on mobile devices instead of the
applications and 3) They are not designed to measure applications that use new features on
mobile devices. In addition to limited usability measures, evaluation becomes more
challenging due to the unique features of mobile devices such as limited bandwidth,
unreliability of wireless networks, changing mobile context (e.g., location), small screen size,
and limited memory. Hence, this study will propose a conceptual model called mGQM to
evaluate mobile applications.
The objective of this research is to propose a usability metric that can be used to evaluate
mobile applications. The proposed evaluation model is based on a goal-driven method for
developing and maintaining a meaningful metrics program, Goal Question Metric (GQM).
The proposed metric, mGQM (Mobile Goal Question Metric) consists of usability metrics to
assess both quantitative and qualitative measures of mobile phone applications, which other
models do not offer. In order to derive a usability metric using the GQM approach, a literature
search and review are conducted to obtain usability characteristics, which become the goals to
the initial model. The questions are subsequently developed to assess each goal and finally the
metrics are derived by refining all the questions into metrics.

Citation

Hussain, A. Metric based evaluation of mobile devices : Mobile Goal Question Metric (mGQM). (Thesis). Salford : University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2012
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2012