Usability Evaluation of Islamic Learning Mobile Applications

Abstract : The trend of using mobile devices for the purpose of learning is gaining momentum. Apart from traditional education, various applications are being developed for religious learning. Pakistan is inhabited by around 98% of Muslims.  Hence, the informal learning of Islam is essential for Muslim child development. This research presents a usability study of different Islamic learning mobile applications available on the android platform for children. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the usability of different Islamic learning mobile applications for children of diverse age groups in order to understand what design principles must be followed that increase the usability of the application. The main focus of this research is to observe and evaluate how easily children of different age groups respond to different applications, how effectively the children understand the core features of the applications and how easily they are able to use the application by themselves.

Smart Learning Companion (SLAC)

Augmented Reality (AR) tends to merge the computing world with the real world, giving way to an incredible user experience. This field is not only limited to entertainment but has been utilized in various domains including healthcare, education and training. Realizing the potential of Augmented Reality in improving the learning experience, researchers have explored many ways of incorporating AR in the field education. Consequently, this research is focused on providing interactive and customized learning experience to book readers. We present a mobile application, Smart Learning Companion (SLAC), for physical books that provide a virtual content for a book. The virtual content include, 3D animations, Quizzes, explanation of content in native language and many other features. The virtual content is activated as soon as pages are scanned with a mobile phone or tablet. Smart Learning Companion explains animated educational content and provides an interactive user experience. The aim of SLAC is to encourage students to learn on their own by making books more interactive. Smart Learning Companion provides explanation in Urdu, solutions of exercises with animations, quizzes for each section, and overall result that shows the student progress. This will help to reduce the dependency of students on others for learning making them capable of self-learning. Smart Learning Companion applications are developed for four books to conduct the experiments. Experimental study is conducted to show the effectiveness of Smart Learning Companion application. The results show that our application helped students to understand the concepts more easily as explanation was provided in national language of Pakistan, that is, Urdu