A framework for software usability and ux measurement in mobile indystry

A Framework for Software Usability & User
Experience Measurement in Mobile Industry
Jia Tan, Kari Rönkkö
Blekinge Institute of Technology,
Karlskrona, Sweden
tanjia81@yahoo.com, kari.ronkko@bth.se
Cigdem Gencel
Free University of Bolzano,
Bolzano (Bozen), Italy
cigdem.gencel@unibz.it
Abstract—The mobile industry faces challenges in designing
software usability and user experience (UX) measurement
instruments. The major difficulties arise due to: 1) diversity of
definitions and terminology used for usability and UX aspects
and attributes, which lead to inconsistencies, and 2) lack of a
taxonomy for these attributes with links to well-defined measures
in the literature. In this paper, we present a framework to
support mobile industry to overcome these challenges. We first
unified the terminology and definitions for usability and UX
attributes in the literature. Then, we created taxonomy of
attributes and sub-attributes. By using the well-known Goal
Question Metric (GQM) approach, we identified a comprehensive
set of questions and measures for each attribute that could be
used as a basis for developing measurement instruments. The
framework was evaluated through a case study conducted in a
usability research, development and consultancy company for
mobile industry in Sweden.
Keywords—software usability; user experience; Goal Question
Metric; evaluation; measurement; case study; mobile industry
I. INTRODUCTION
During the last decade, mobile phones and applications
have become one of the most popular mass-market products.
The mobile industry has to deal with challenges of increasing
functionality requirements of the users as well as their demand
for high quality. In order to survive in the highly competitive
market, mobile development companies not only should satisfy
the requirements of users but also provide more: a satisfying
experience.
Kirakowski et al. [1] identified three interdependent aspects
to be considered when evaluating technology: i) the product, ii)
interaction between the user and the product (usability), and iii)
experience of using the product (user experience). This paper
deals with usability and user experience (UX) aspects.
Usability takes an objective view of quality; the hallmark of
usability testing methods primarily rests on observation or
measurement when participants interact with a product.
On the other hand, UX highlights non-utilitarian aspects of
such interactions, shifting the focus to user affect and sensation.
Since UX is subjective, it may not matter how good a product
is objectively; its quality must also be “experienced”
subjectively to have impact. And, several aspects can influence
how people perceive quality during the interaction with the
product.
There are a number of measures, instruments and tools
developed for measuring usability and UX. However, the
definitions for usability and UX vary significantly in software
engineering (SE) community [2][3]. In addition, UX is an
intriguing notion, which has been widely disseminated and is
increasingly accepted in the Human-Computer Interaction
(HCI) community as well. The independent efforts put forth by
these two separate communities have further increased the
diversity in the definitions and inconsistencies in terminology,
and hence inconsistencies in understanding and measurement
(see Section II and Appendix). Therefore, different
organizations use different measures and instruments for
evaluating their products, which does not allow comparability.
Furthermore, even though a few standards (such as [4], [5])
have been developed to enable standardization, they are not
being widely used when developing measurement instruments.
One identified reason is the lack of experts in these areas [6]. In
addition, there is a wide gap between academic studies and
industrial practice [7], which does not support development of
measurement and evaluation instruments.
In order to address some of these challenges, we developed
a framework [8] to support mobile industry when designing
usability and UX measurement instruments and, thereby
reliably compare their products. We tested the framework in a
mobile application development company, where a
measurement instrument that meets the needs of the company
was developed using the framework.
This paper is organized as follows: In Section II,
background work on usability, UX and evaluation methods is
presented. Section III presents the developed framework, and
Section IV, the case study. Finally, the conclusions are given in
Section V.
II. BACKGROUND
Traditional usability definition strongly focuses on users’
tasks and their accomplishment; that is, more on the pragmatic
side of the user-product relationship. On the other hand, UX
represents a holistic view of the pragmatic aspects and hedonic
aspects of product possession and use such as beauty,
challenge, stimulation, or self-expression [9].
Usability considers barriers, problems, frustration, stress
and other negative aspects, and their removal. On the other
hand, UX often stresses the importance of positive outcomes of
2013 Joint Conference of the 23nd International Workshop on Software Measurement (IWSM) and the Eighth International
Conference on Software Process and Product Measurement (Mensura)
978-0-7695-5078-7/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/IWSM-Mensura.2013.31
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technology use or possession; be it positive emotions such as
joy, pride, and excitement or simply “value” [10].
As UX is associated with a broad range of fuzzy concepts
related to emotion, affection, experience, hedonic and aesthetic,
this creates difficulty in getting a universal definition for UX.
Some examples of so-called elemental attributes of UX
proposed by Cockton [11] are fun, pleasure, pride, joy,
surprise, and intimacy. And these are just a subset of a growing
list of human values.
Roto & Kaasinen [12] propose that UX is a term that
describes user’s feelings towards a specific product, system, or
object during and after interacting with it. Various aspects
influence the feelings, such as user’s expectations, the
conditions in which the interaction takes place, and the
system’s ability to serve user’s current needs. According to
Jetter & Gerken [13], UX incorporates not only the traditional
qualities like reliability, functionality, or usability but also
novel and hard-to-grasp concepts from visual or industrial
design, psychology or marketing research, e.g. attractiveness,
stimulation, fun, “coolness”, “sexiness” or the successful
delivery of a brand proposition.
There are a number of researchers who investigated UX
components [9][14][15][16][17]. They found out that there is a
wide agreement that user’s earlier experiences and expectations
as well as the context of use affect UX.
Hassenzahl [18] proposed a complex model, which defined
key elements of UX and their functional relations. The author
distinguished the difference between pragmatic and hedonic
attributes in his model. Later, Hassenzahl & Tractinsky [9]
defined three high level components, which are able to cover
all aspects mentioned above. In [12][19], these three
components are taken as a starting point and a set of attributes
related to each component are identified. The first component
is the System, which involves product, object, service,
infrastructure and people, the complexity, purpose, usability,
functionality as the characteristics of the designed system. The
second component is the Context, which includes physical
context, social context, temporal context and task context. The
last component is the User, which considers user’s needs, the
available mental and physical resources, emotional state, earlier
experience and expectations.
There are various usability and UX evaluation methods in
the literature, which were categorized by [20] as: a) user-based
evaluation methods [21] such as user-administered
questionnaires, observing users and empirical usability testing;
b) inspection-based evaluation methods [22] such as heuristic
evaluation, guideline-based methods, cognitive walkthrough
and heuristic walkthrough; and c) model-based evaluation
methods [23] such as task network model.
A number of studies in the literature show that usability is
usually measured subjectively, and often not in a consistent
way [24][25][26][27]. Evaluation of usability in this manner
results in inconsistent results about the usability [28], or else
incomparability of the test results of products.
III. A FRAMEWORK SUPPORT FOR USABILITY AND UX
MEASUREMENT
In this section, we present the details of the developed
framework, which has two main components: 1) A taxonomy
for usability and UX attributes, and 2) A generic questions and
measures set for developing measurement instruments.
A. A Taxonomy For Usability and UX Attributes
In order to develop the framework, we first defined a
taxonomy for usability and UX attributes. Performing a
comprehensive literature review, we explored the definitions
and terminology for usability and UX attributes. We used the
snowball approach when performing the literature review. We
started by reviewing the standards discussed in [29] as the base
for our further exploration. Then, by analyzing the results, we
came up with a list of attributes with unified definitions and
terminology. In the framework, we chose to use the definitions
of the standards recognized by the community (see Appendix -
Table 3 & Table 4 for the definitions in the literature).
Finally, we defined a taxonomy of attributes and associated
sub-attributes by identifying the nature of the relationship
among them (see Table 1). In total, we identified 9 main
attributes and 27 associated sub-attributes. For example, the
sub-attributes; Time behavior, Resource utilization,
Operability, Minimal action, Feedback, Minimal memory load
and Navigability are dimensions of Efficiency attribute. From
the perspective of sub-attributes, for example, Attractiveness is
related to two main attributes: Satisfaction and
Generalizability. On the other hand, Understandability has no
relation to any sub-attributes identified.
B. A Generic Questions And Measures Set For Developing
Measurement Instruments
The framework was developed with the aim to support
companies for developing their usability and UX evaluation
instruments. Therefore, as the second step, we defined a
generic set of questions and measures, which mobile
companies can use in developing their usability and UX
evaluation methods.
To this end, we used the well-known Goal Question Metric
(GQM) paradigm [30][31]. GQM is a top-down approach used
in identifying the required measures in a company based on the
organizational or business goals. For the purposes of this study,
however, we used the GQM approach for another purpose than
how it is used traditionally.
As the framework was to be generic to allow designing
measurement instruments for any mobile development
company, we first defined generic top-level goals for the 9
usability and UX main attributes of mobile applications. For
example, one top-level goal was “to assess usability and UX
for a specific software product from the user’s point of view in
the context of mobile applications”.
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TABLE 1. TAXONOMY FOR USABILITY AND UX ATTRIBUTES
ATTRIBUTES (with # of Questions identified)
Efficiency(77)
Effectiveness(48)
Satisfaction(98)
Productivity(5)
Learnability(52)
Safety(16)
Accessibility(22)
Generalizability(32)
Understandability(18)
SUB-ATTRIBUTES
Time behavior
Resource utilization
Users’ assessment
Experts ‘assessment
Operability
Minimal action
Feedback
Minimal memory load
Flexibility
Quality of outcome
Navigability
Preference
Users’ attitudes/perceptions
Memorability
Likeability
Fault tolerance
Security
Privacy
Accuracy
User Guidance
Consistency
Completeness
Attractiveness
Self-descriptiveness
Simplicity
Controllability
Readability
Then, we identified sub-goals for each main
attribute/sub-attribute pair in the taxonomy. For example,
one sub-goal was defined for Efficiency-Time Behavior and
another for Learnability-Minimal action. In total, we defined
63 sub-goals.
Later, we defined a set of questions that can be used by
mobile companies as part of measurement instruments as
these correspond to information needs of the stakeholders.
We also included in the framework a couple of questions
companies have already been using. For the main 9 main
attribute/27 sub-attribute pairs, we defined in total 368
questions (Efficiency: 77, Effectiveness: 48, Satisfaction: 98,
Productivity: 5, Learnability: 52, Safety: 16, Accessibility:
22, Generalizability: 32, Understandability: 18) as shown in
Table 1.
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Finally, we associated the measures found in the
literature review to the questions. To answer each question,
we added both objective and subjective measures that we
identified in the literature. We present a few examples in
Table 2.
TABLE 2. EXAMPLE QUESTIONS AND MEASURES FOR USABILITY AND UX EVALUATION
1. a. Attribute: Efficiency
1.a.1 Sub-Attribute: Time behavior
Q1: How long does it take before the system response to a specified operation? (ISO 9126-2)
Measure: Response time T = (time of gaining the result) - ( time of command entry finished)
Q2: What is the average wait time the user experiences after issuing a request until the request is completed within a specified system load
in terms of concurrent tasks and system utilization? (ISO 9126-2)
Measure: Mean time to response
X = Tmean / TXmean
Tmean = ¦(Ti) / N, (for i=1 to N)
TXmean = required mean response time
Ti= response time for i-th evaluation (shot)
N= number of evaluations (sampled shots)
…
1.a Attribute: Efficiency
1.a.2 Sub-Attribute: Resource utilization
Q1: Is the I/O device utilization too high, causing inefficiencies? (ISO 9126-2)
Measure: I/O devices utilization X = A / B
A = time of I/O devices occupied,
B = specified time which is designed to occupy I/O devices
Q2: What is the average number of I/O related error messages and failures over a specified length of time and specified utilization? (ISO
9126-2)
Measure: Mean I/O fulfillment ratio X = Amean / Rmean
Amean = ¦(Ai)/N
Rmean = required mean number of I/O messages
Ai = number of I/O error messages for i-th evaluation
N = number of evaluations
Q3: What is the impact of I/O device utilization on the user wait times? (ISO 9126-2)
Measure: User waiting time of I/O devices utilization T = Time spent to wait for finish of I/O devices operation
…
3. Attribute: Effectiveness
3.3 Sub-Attribute: Accuracy
Q1: How completely have the accuracy requirements been implemented?
Measure: Computational accuracy (ISO 9126-3)
X=A/B
A= Number of functions in which specific accuracy requirements had been implemented, as confirmed in evaluation.
B= Number of functions for which specific accuracy requirements need to be implemented.
Q2: How often do the end users encounter results with inadequate precision?
Measure: Precision (Nyberg et al., 2001)
X=A/T
A=Number of results encountered by the users with level of precision different from required
T= Operation time
…
IV. CASE STUDY
In order to evaluate the framework, we conducted a case
study in a small telecom company. Our research question for
this case study was as follows: “Does the framework provide
improvement by supporting the design of usability and UX
evaluation instruments?”
We designed this case study as a single-case study [32] as
the case company and the selected application are
representative and typical in software mobile industry.
The case company was Adduce AB, a Swedish research,
development and consultancy company that was established
in early 2009. Adduce AB mainly provides four services:
Adduce Research, Adduce Studios, Adduce Consulting and
Adduce Courses. The research part focuses on developing
the Adduce toolbox, which would provide clients to drive,
prove and maintain high-level of usability in their products.
Adduce Studio mainly works on producing fun and
innovative mobile applications and games. And finally, the
company also offers expert consultancy in the area of
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usability, UX, product management and software
development.
A. Case Study Conduct
The case company decided to use one of the recent
applications; BodyJournal application installed on iPod 8GB
product (model number: A1288), as the case application. The
main purpose of developing this application was to help
people to keep fit and healthy by controlling daily calories
gaining and burning amount.
For this case study, as the usability evaluation method,
we used User-based evaluation method [21] - a combination
of Questionnaire approach and Observing Users approach
[33]. For the UX, we used a combination of Questionnaire
approach and Narration approach [34][35].
To develop the measurement instruments, we tailored the
framework for the needs of the company and the case
application in an iterative by also involving the CEO of the
company, who himself is a usability measurement expert. He
has ten years of professional work experience on usability
research. In the past, he worked as usability researcher, test
leader, interaction design manager, and product strategy
manager.
The experts decided to evaluate a number of use cases. At
the end, two usability evaluation questionnaires were
developed for each (one with 67 statements using a likert-
scale from 1 to 5 for the end-user to fill in while each use
case is conducted and the other with 27 questions selected
from the framework for the test leader to make
measurements while observing the user during the tests).
These two forms evaluate 8 of the usability sub-
attributes; that is, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Productivity,
Learnability, Accessibility, Generalizability,
Understandability and Safety. The ninth usability sub-
attribute, Satisfaction was evaluated through an overall
satisfaction and UX evaluation form. In total, 19 statements
were selected from the framework and customized for the
BodyJournal application, which ended up with 10 statements
in the form.
Later, we used these instruments during the expert
evaluation session. Two participants from the case company
were involved at this phase. One of the participants had five
years of work experience as usability researcher and test
leader, and the second has eight years of experience of
method cooperation with industry [36] focusing usability.
Both had experience of developing a usability test
framework that became a de facto standard in industry with
more than 350 employees [37].
The case study was performed in the company offices.
One of the participants played the role of the user while the
other as the test leader. During the case study, the test leader
worked together with the user and the user was encouraged
to think aloud to help the test leader to better understand how
users were thinking and the motivations behind their
behavior.
The test leader observed the user during the tests and
made measurements according to the designed questions (e.g
recorded the time taken to conduct an individual task; noted
errors, and number of attempts to correct errors, observed the
user’s hesitation from a natural flow of user interaction,
recorded time taken to look for help and etc.).
When performing each use case, the user was requested
to complete the usability evaluation questionnaire concerning
the application in relation to the specific use case just
performed. This process was repeated for each use case and
in between each use case, the test leader communicated his
observations with the user and verified whether his
impressions were correct or not. When all 7 use cases were
completed, the user was asked to fill in an overall
Satisfaction and UX evaluation form, which expresses the
user’s overall opinion of the application based on the
experience.
The data collected during the sessions were summarized
using a spreadsheet and presented as graphs to show the
overall satisfaction.
B. Case Study Results
The participants of the expert evaluation session stated
that the evaluation results of the end-users together with the
expert tests provided good indicators regarding the strengths
and weaknesses of the current version of the BodyJournal
application.
For example, from the end-user evaluations (see Figure
1), it was identified that the Accessibility and
Generalizability aspects (such as support for multi-language,
interface customization and zooming functions) were not
considered for the current design of the application.
EffectivenessEfficiency
Satisfaction
Productivity
LearnabilitySafety
A
ccessability
G
eneralizability
U
nderstandability
U
X
FIGURE 1 BODYJOURNAL APPLICATION USABILITY & UX
TEST RESULTS (END-USERS PERSPECTIVE)
Furthermore, even though the Learnability and
Understandability aspects appeared to be good based on the
end-user evaluations, the test results of the experts regarding
two of the use cases showed that the grouping and ordering
of the menu options were not intuitive for the users, and
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some were confusing. Therefore, the experts decided to re-
design the task flow for these use cases. The test results also
indicated that it was necessary to check the calculation
accuracy of adding activity function. The details of the test
results can be found in [8].
One important result from the usability evaluation to
improve the measurement and evaluation instruments was
the need to further categorize the use cases according to their
relationship to the specific aspects of usability and domain,
and that the questions can benefit from being split according
to the chosen use cases. This work needs to be done
iteratively by applying industry.
On the other hand, the case study has some validity
threats that require to be discussed. The case application was
evaluated in one company for a single case product.
Therefore, it is hard to generalize the results for other
companies and cases. But, we believe that the study is strong
in when it comes to conclusion validity, i.e. the degree to
which conclusions we reach about relationships in our data
are reasonable among professionals in the domain of
usability and UX.
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented a framework for supporting
development of usability and UX measurement instruments.
The framework provides a unified terminology and
taxonomy for usability and UX attributes sub-attributes.
Furthermore, incorporating a generic set of questions and
related measures, the framework serves as a guideline for
mobile companies on how to trace and interpret the collected
data on the usability and UX of their products. The collected
data based on visible goals can eventually lead to better
decisions to improve the usability and the UX of the mobile
industry products.
Furthermore, during our discussions with the participants
of the case study, we identified the significance of addressing
context of use regarding usability measurement that requires
further investigation. Also, in most cases, usability and UX
measurements are still put in the late stage of software
product development and there is a need to find a way to
shift it to the early stage of development life cycle. A
promising future work identified is the extension of the
framework to help in identifying the relationship between
usability and UX attributes and their relevant measures that
could be used at different phases in the life cycle. This
information might be used to develop evaluation methods
early in the life cycle so that the final product usability and
UX will be improved.
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162

APPENDIX
TABLE 3. USABILITY AND UX ATTRIBUTES DESCRIPTION
Attributes Sources
Efficiency [3][5][38][39][40][41][42][43]
“The capability of the software product to provide appropriate performance, relative to the amount of resources used, under stated conditions.”
[3].
Effectiveness [4][40][41][42][43][44][45]
“The capability of the software product to enable users to achieve specified tasks with accuracy and completeness in a specified context of
use.” [44].
Satisfaction [4][38][39][41][42][43][44][46]
“Satisfaction measures assess the user’s attitudes towards the use of the product in a specified context of use.” [44].
Productivity [40][43][44]
“The capability of the software product to enable users to expend appropriate amounts of resources (i.e. time to complete tasks, user efforts,
materials or financial cost of usage) in relation to the effectiveness achieved in a specified context of use.” [44].
Learn-ability [3][38][40][41][42][43][45][46][47][48]
“The capability of the software product to enable the user to learn its application.” [3]
Safety [44]
“Safety metrics assess the level of risk of harm to people, business, software, property or the environment in a specified context of use. It
includes the health and safety of the both the user and those affected by use, as well as unintended physical or economic consequences.”
[44].
Accessibility [49]
The capability of a software product to be used by persons with some type of disability (e.g., visual, hearing).
Generalizability
This attribute concerns whether a software product accommodates different kinds of users with different cultural backgrounds, gender, age and
etc.
Understandability [3][38]
Whether users can understand how to select a software product that is suitable for their intended use and how it can be used for particular tasks.
TABLE 4. USABILITY AND UX SUB-ATTRIBUTES DESCRIPTION
Sub-Attributes Description
Time behavior [3][39]
“The capability of the software product to provide appropriate response and processing times and throughput rates when performing its
function, under stated conditions.” [1]
Resource utilization [3][39]
“Capability to consume appropriate amounts and types of resources when the software performs its function under stated conditions.” [3]
Attractiveness [3]
Capability of the software product to be attractive to the user (e.g., through use of color or graphic design)
Operability [3][45]
“The capability of the software product to enable the user to operate and control it.”
Likeability [3][51]
“User’s perceptions, feelings, and opinions of the product” [50]
Flexibility [47][48][52]
“With flexibility allowing adaptation to some specified percentage variation in tasks and or environments beyond those first specified.” [52]
Minimal action [39][40][48]
“Capability of the software product to help users achieve their tasks in a minimum number of steps.” [48]
Minimal memory load [48]
Whether a user is required to keep minimal amount of information in mind in order to achieve a specified task. To ensure minimal working
memory load will increase human performance. Minimal long-term memory load requirement will help users learn interface more easily.
The less that users need to learn, the faster users can learn it.
Memorability [38]
163

The concept of memorability, within the usability context, is that a user can leave a software product and, when he or she returns to it,
remember how to do things in it.
Accuracy [3]
“The capability of software product to provide right or agreed results or effects.” [3]
User Guidance [48]
Whether the user interface provides context-sensitive help and meaningful feedback when errors occur. In general, a computer system with a
good user guidance scheme will improve the learnability of the system as well as decrease the mental workload of the users since no extra
effort will be needed for the users to perform designated tasks.
Consistency [48]
“Degree of uniformity among elements of user interface and whether they offer meaningful metaphors to users.” In human computer
interaction, consistency is recognized to be able to improve user performance and user satisfaction.
Self-descriptiveness [53]
“The capability of the software product to convey its purpose and give clear user assistance in its operation.” Self-descriptiveness provides
simplicity by reducing users' memory load. Users can retain their capacity for their tasks instead of bothering with the system. They can
work more efficiently.
Feedback [3]
“Responsiveness of the software product to user inputs or events in a meaningful way.” [3]
Completeness [55]
Whether a user can complete a specified task.
Fault tolerance [3]
“The capability of the software product to maintain a specified level of performance in cases of software faults or of infringement of its
specified interface.” [3]
Readability [3]
Ease with which visual content (e.g., text dialogs) can be understood.
Controllability [41][42][43][53]
Whether users feel that they are in control of the software product.
Navigability [3]
Whether users can move around in the application in an efficient way.
Simplicity [54]
“Whether extraneous elements are eliminated from the user interface without significant information loss.”
Privacy [3]
“Whether users’ personal information is appropriately protected.”
Security [3]
“The capability of the software product to protect information and data so that unauthorized persons or systems cannot read or modify them
and authorized persons or systems are not denied access.”
Quality of outcome [55]
Measures of the quality of the outcome of the interaction
Experts’ assessment [55]
Experts’ assessment of outcomes of the interaction
Users’ assessment [55]
Users’ assessment of the outcome of interaction
Preference [56][57]
“Measures satisfaction as the interface users prefers using.” [55]
Users’ attitudes and perceptions [55]
“Users’ attitudes towards and perceptions of phenomena other than the interface” [55]
164

A framework for software usability and ux measurement in mobile indystry

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