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Usability evaluation of messenger applications for Android phones using cognitive walkthrough

Published: 24 September 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Android - the open source operating system for mobile phones is grabbing more and more user attention and thousands of Android applications are currently being developed. This research aims at usability evaluation of three messenger applications on Android phones, chosen based on a user survey. The applications include WhatsApp, Skype and GO SMS Pro, focusing on primary tasks such as chatting, file transfer, profile viewing and updating contacts. For usability evaluation, Cognitive Walkthrough is selected as it helps in evaluation of tasks providing correct execution paths, while revealing reasons for error occurrences. Cognitive Walkthrough also highlights many usability problems such as lack of provision for multiple smiley selection, no confirmation message for file transfer and ineffective 'Search' functionality. In future, the identified usability problems should be resolved by designing improved mobile interfaces for messenger applications that has an ever-growing user-base.

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cover image ACM Conferences
APCHI '13: Proceedings of the 11th Asia Pacific Conference on Computer Human Interaction
September 2013
420 pages
ISBN:9781450322539
DOI:10.1145/2525194
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 24 September 2013

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Author Tags

  1. Android phones
  2. cognitive walkthrough
  3. messenger applications
  4. usability evaluation

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  • (2024)Measuring the Effects of Usability Recommendations for Mobile Instant Messaging Apps on User Performance and User BehaviourInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.230355341:1(608-626)Online publication date: 23-Jan-2024
  • (2024)Touchtalk: Enhancing Messaging in Smartphones for Visually ImpairedProceedings of the 14th Indian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1007/978-981-97-4335-3_7(133-148)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2024
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