The objective of this research is to advance usability testing of mobile applications by integrating contextualized and automated techniques. Unlike the traditional desktop environment, mobile user experience is heavily influenced by user context such as physical location, transport mode, social surroundings, and task intention. The novelty of this project is a model-based usability testing approach that quantitatively integrates user context. The expected outcomes include: 1) a new framework of automated usability analysis to improve the effectiveness of diary studies by jointly modeling user cognition, application state, and user context; 2) a set of operationalized usability rules developed for mobile applications; and 3) a simulation-based development toolkit for automated usability inspection. This project addresses an emerging research theme and an urgent practical usability problem, and is expected to produce technology solutions as well as educational materials.
This project addresses a practical need of the fast-growing mobile application industry. The software artifacts will be made available to both research communities and industry practitioners through open source technology transfer, which can significantly reduce the cost of mobile usability testing. The proposed research will be integrated with three new course modules taught by PI. Women and minority students will be recruited to participate both research and education activities. All the course materials will be made available online.
