Current Practices for Product Usability Testing in Web and Mobile Applications

Software usability testing is a key methodology that ensures applications are intuitive and easy to use for the target audience. Usability testing has direct benefits for companies as usability improvements often are fundamental to the success of a product. A standard usability test study includes the following five steps: obtain suitable participants, design test scripts, conduct usability sessions, interpret test outcomes, and produce recommendations. Due to the increasing importance for more usable applications, effective techniques to develop usable products, as well as technologies to improve usability testing, have been widely utilized. However, as companies are developing more cross-platform web and mobile apps, traditional single-platform usability testing has shortcomings with respect to ensuring a uniform user experience. In this report, a new strategy is proposed to promote a consistent user experience across all application versions and platforms. This method integrates the testing of different application versions, e.g., the website, mobile app, mobile website. Participants are recruited with a better-defined criterion according to their preferred devices. The usability session is conducted iteratively on several different devices, and the test results of individual application versions are compared on a per-device basis to improve the test outcomes. This strategy is expected to extend on current practices for usability testing by incorporating cross-platform consistency of software versions on most devices

Research on user participation behavior of mobile short video APPs: Taking Xiaohongshu as an example

Short video apps for mobile devices are rising in popularity. Using Xiaohongshu as an example, this work carefully studies the user participation behavior of mobile short video Apps and contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of pertinent theoretical research. This study equips creators of short videos with the knowledge they require to improve user experience and content marketing on a more objective basis, as well as to enable app upgrading and optimization. The UTAUT theoretical model is used in this paper to develop hypotheses, which are then tested using survey data. Finally, the theoretical model and hypothesis are validated using multiple regression analysis and hierarchical regression analysis. The significant study results are as follows: Users\u27 behavior is significantly influenced by social value, perceived entertainment value, individual innovation, facilitating conditions, and privacy security when using communities; by social value, individual innovation, facilitating conditions, and privacy security when participating in communities; and by social value, facilitating conditions, and privacy security when contributing to communities. Finally, it makes some suggestions for the long-term expansion of mobile short video apps based on the testing results

Understanding WeChat User’s Intention to Use Various Functions: from Social Cognitive Perspective

Based upon social cognitive theory, this study explores the effect of personal and environment factors on Wechat user’s continuous intention to use various functions. Online survey is used to collect data from the WeChat users. The results confirms that some personal factors (relationship benefit and performance benefit) have a positive effect on intention to use, while image does not have significant effect. Besides, three social environmental factors, the popularity of WeChat, subjective norm and company guarantee, all have significant impacts. Furthermore, we find that environmental factors’ effects are stronger than personal factors. Finally, we propose our theoretical and practical implications according to the findings of this study

Exploring the effect of AR filter on perceived brand image: The mediating role of realistic experience

Following its extensive application in study on consumers\u27 retail experience, AR (augmented reality) technology has been increasingly applied in social media, notably the AR filter service, which has been embraced by quite a few brands as a novel marketing tool, taking advantage of its entertaining value and dissemination effect to boost brands\u27 perceived image among consumers. However, there have been fewer studies that examine the effectiveness of brand-developed AR filter services in enhancing consumer perceptions of brand image in the context of social media. To bridge the research gap, the study, based on the S-O-R model, looked into the effect of consumers\u27 cognition of AR-filter features on the realism of their experience and thus their perceived brand image. The study was carried out via a questionnaire survey of users of AR filters developed by brand-developed in social media, with its findings having both academic and practical implications for this field

An All-in-One mHealth Application: #Beats – Your health mate

Màster en Gestió de Continguts Digitals, Facultat d'Informació i Mitjans Audiovisuals, Universitat de Barcelona i UPF, curs 2019-2020. Tutor: Dr. Cristóbal Urbano. UBBy exploring the current situation of the mHealth market in Spain, and the feasibility of the open-source framework, this article looks forward to developing an all-in-one mHealth application with the concept of Mini Programs/ Instant App. It can integrate the healthcare resources and provide users with more experience of instant services without a complicated installation process. It also strengthens the protection of personal information and privacy. In the meanwhile, by applying the methodology of Rapid Prototyping, a user interface of this app, Beats, will be presented to visualize the above concepts. It may be a revolution for medical providers, doctor-patient relationships, public health care systems, and even the entire healthcare system

Predicting Fraud Apps Using Hybrid Learning Approach: A Survey

Each individual in the planet are mobile phone users in fact smart-phone users with android applications. So, due to this attractiveness and well-known concept there will be a hasty growth in mobile technology. And in addition in information mining, mining the required information from a fastidious application is exceptionally troublesome. Consolidating these two ideas of ranking frauds in android market and taking out required information is gone exceptionally tough.The mobile phone Apps has developed at massive speed in some years; as for march 2017, there are nearby 2.8 million Apps at google play and 2.2 Apps at Google Apps store. In addition, there are over 400,000 self-governing app developers all fighting for the attention of the same potential clients. The Google App Store saw 128,000 new business apps alone in 2014 and the mobile gaming category alone has contest to the tune of almost 300,000 apps. Here the major need to make fraud search in Apps is by searching the high ranked applications up to 30-40 which may be ranked high in some time or the applications which are in those high ranked lists should be confirmed but this is not applied for thousands of applications added per day. So, go for wide examination by applying some procedure to every application to judge its ranking. Discovery of ranking fraud for mobile phone applications, require a flawless, fraud less and result that show correct application accordingly provide ranking; where really make it occur by searching fraud of applications. They create fraud of App by ranked high the App by methods using such human water armies and bot farms; where they create fraud by downloading application through different devices and provide fake ratings and reviews. So, extract critical data connecting particular application such as review which was called comments and lots of other information, to mine and place algorithm to identify fakeness in application rank

Urban forecast: An analysis of a crowdsourced mobile app for crisis management

People around the world have become more connected thanks to the rise of social technology. As a result, that same technology has allowed us to witness the amount of violence and disastrous events that people around the world are experiencing. Civilians in Syria are constantly caught between rebel forces and the Syrian government\u27s army with no way of knowing where the next attack will be. People in Colorado had to wait for news updates on the wildfires of 2012 to make critical decisions on whether to evacuate or stay in their homes. A man in Mexico had all his personal belongings stolen at gunpoint when he came across a cartel-enforced blockade on his way to the grocery store. All these situations could have been avoided if those people had information about dangerous locations right away to help them make decisions. Civilians themselves who have just experienced the danger have valuable information that they can share to help other people avoid the same situation. This thesis presents a tool called Urban Forecast that can help citizens avoid dangerous locations and events by posting it on a map in the application and having it notify every other user around that area. Initial results suggest that Urban Forecast is effective at helping people avoid dangerous situations. Future designs based on results are also presented. The focus of this thesis is not entirely on the technology, but on the impact that it has on society in a hostile environment

Blockchain For Trustful Collaborations Between Immigrants, Citizens And Governments

mmigrants usually are pro-social towards their hometowns and try to improve them. However, the lack of trust in their government can drive immigrants to work individually. As a result, their pro-social activities are usually limited in impact and scope. Although blockchain technology have the potential to solve the trust issue, people are not familiar with the technology and they have no idea why it is trustworthy. Previous research showed that the adopting user interface properly can increase people\u27s trust in technology. This paper studies the interface factors that ease collaborations between immigrants and their home governments. We specifically focus on Mexican immigrants in the US who want to improve their rural communities. We identify that for Mexican immigrants having clear workflows of how their money flows and a sense of control over this workflow is important for collaborating with their government. Based on these findings, we create a blockchain based system for building trust between governments and immigrants by: (1) decentralizing the power of the government and giving more agency to citizens; (2) fighting corruption; and (3) enhancing fiscal transparency in community development projects. We finish by discussing design implications of our work and future directions

The influencing factors of user loyalty on e-commerce shopping guide platform -- Case “Shenmezhidemai”

In recent years, the development of the online retail market has become more and more diversified. There are a large number of advertisements and products gathered on major e-commerce platforms. Consumers cannot efficiently select the products they want in the huge product pool, and it is also difficult for merchants to select high-quality products. The products are precisely oriented to consumers, so the e-commerce shopping guide industry has begun to spread, develop and become popular. To help consumers select high-quality goods more quickly, the e-commerce shopping guide platforms collect and integrate information and discounts for users, and provide users with decision-making suggestions. However, there is a phenomenon that users who are dissatisfied after purchasing a product because of product price reduction, quality problems or logistics problems become angry with the e-commerce shopping guide platform. As a result, users even quit and uninstall the e-commerce shopping guide platform completely. In fact, the result should be the responsibility of the merchant who sells the product. This thesis takes the e-commerce shopping guide platform “Shenmezhidemai” as the re-search object, and uses grounded theory, case study and in-depth interview to carry out this research. First of all, this thesis sorts out the relevant research on e-commerce shopping guide platform and user loyalty, and conducts an overview of the environment, development history and status quo, classification, characteristics and profit model of e-commerce shop-ping guide platform. Secondly, based on grounded theory and in-depth interview method, 20 people participated in the interview, and the interview records of about 20,000 words were obtained. Through open coding, axial coding, selective coding and other processes, the key influencing factors of e-commerce shopping guide platform user loyalty are analyzed and the theoretical model is constructed. Through the eight categories of user-related factors, information utility, system utility, platform reputation, recommending function, interactive function, price comparison function and cross-border shopping function, the model of influencing factors of e-commerce shopping guide platform user loyalty is carefully analyzed. Finally, aiming at the above eight categories, corresponding suggestions are put forward for e-commerce shopping guide platforms to cultivate and increase user loyalty. The thesis hopes to provide some implications and recommendations for the development of e-commerce shopping guide platforms

The mediation of gay men's lives: A review on gay dating app studies

A growing body of literature focuses on gay men's use of mobile dating applications or “dating apps.” Running on smartphones and working with GPS, dating apps connect users to others in close geographic proximity and often in real time. These apps allow users to create profiles to present themselves and interact with each other to reach multiple goals, such as casual sex, dating, or networking. Attending to the dynamics between communication technologies and society, this article reviews gay dating app studies that highlight the communicative practices and social relations mediated by dating apps. Using the mediation framework as a starting point, we examine major themes in these studies, including gay men's online self-presentation and interactions, gay community in the digital era, and gay men's interpersonal relationships. We suggest that future research should pay more attention to the technical development of dating devices and the transformation of gay men's social relations