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

Hussain, A 2012, Metric based evaluation of mobile devices : Mobile Goal Question Metric (mGQM) , PhD thesis, Salford : University of Salford.

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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.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Contributors:	Kutar, MS (Supervisor)
Schools:	Schools > Salford Business School
Depositing User:	Institutional Repository
Date Deposited:	03 Oct 2012 13:34
Last Modified:	04 Aug 2022 11:26
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/26720

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