Mobile Application Usability: Heuristic Evaluation and Evaluation of Heuristics

Ger Joyce, Mariana Lilley, Trevor Barker, and Amanda Jefferies, 'Mobile Application Usability: Heuristic Evaluation and Evaluation of Heuristics', paper presented at AHFE 2016 International Conference on Human Factors, Software, and Systems Engineering. Walt Disney World, Florida USA, 27-31 July 2016Many traditional usability evaluation methods do not consider mobile-specific issues. This can result in mobile applications that abound in usability issues. We empirically evaluate three sets of usability heuristics for use with mobile applications, including a set defined by the authors. While the set of heuristics defined by the authors surface more usability issues in a mobile application than other sets of heuristics, improvements to the set can be made

Privacy and Usability of Image and Text Based Challenge Questions Authentication in Online Examination

In many online examinations, physical invigilation is often replaced with traditional authentication approaches for student identification. Secure and usable authentication approaches are important for high stake online examinations. A Profile Based Authentication Framework (PBAF) was developed and implemented in a real online learning course embedded with summative online examination. Based on users’ experience of using the PBAF in an online course, online questionnaires were used to collect participants' feedback on effectiveness, layout and appearance, user satisfaction, distraction and privacy concerns. Based on overall findings of the quantitative analysis, there was a positive feedback on the use of a hybrid approach utilizing image and text based challenge questions for better usability. However, the number of questions presented during learning and examination processes were reported to be too many and caused distraction. Participants expressed a degree of concern on sharing personal and academic information with little or no privacy concern on using favorite question

Evaluating Security and Usability of Profile Based Challenge Questions Authentication in Online Examinations

© 2014 Ullah et al.; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.Student authentication in online learning environments is an increasingly challenging issue due to the inherent absence of physical interaction with online users and potential security threats to online examinations. This study is part of ongoing research on student authentication in online examinations evaluating the potential benefits of using challenge questions. The authors developed a Profile Based Authentication Framework (PBAF), which utilises challenge questions for students’ authentication in online examinations. This paper examines the findings of an empirical study in which 23 participants used the PBAF including an abuse case security analysis of the PBAF approach. The overall usability analysis suggests that the PBAF is efficient, effective and usable. However, specific questions need replacement with suitable alternatives due to usability challenges. The results of the current research study suggest that memorability, clarity of questions, syntactic variation and question relevance can cause usability issues leading to authentication failure. A configurable traffic light system was designed and implemented to improve the usability of challenge questions. The security analysis indicates that the PBAF is resistant to informed guessing in general, however, specific questions were identified with security issues. The security analysis identifies challenge questions with potential risks of informed guessing by friends and colleagues. The study was performed with a small number of participants in a simulation online course and the results need to be verified in a real educational context on a larger sample sizePeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Design, Privacy and Authentication of Challenge Questions in Online Examinations

Online examination is an essential part of the online learning and secure authentication is considered vital for the success of online learning. This study is part of an ongoing research on student authentication approaches and the use of challenge questions in online examination authentication. This paper presents the results of an empirical study based on “Profile Based Authentication Framework” (PBAF), which uses challenge questions for student authentication in online examination. The PBAF uses challenge questions related to personal, academic and professional information. These questions inform the usability, security and privacy of PBAF authentication approach. The results presented here summarizes the impact of questions design on the usability based on data collected from challenge questions authentication and a post-experiment survey on the data privac

The development and evaluation of a computer-adaptive testing application for English language

This paper reports on research undertaken at the University of Hertfordshire into the development and initial expert evaluation of a computer-adaptive testing programme based on Item Response Theory (IRT). The paper explains how the Three-Parameter Logistic model was implemented in the prototype. The underlying theory and assumptions of the model used in its development are also explained, along with the limitations and benefits of the computer-adaptive test (CAT) approach compared to traditional computer-based test (CBT) methods. In this paper use of the prototype as an alternative to the current method used by the University is evaluated by experts, and summaries of their reports and recommendations are presented. This paper also describes plans for developing this work further, including its use in computer-based student modelling where an accurate estimation of performance within a subject domain can be used to inform and adapt the choice of presentation of learning materials. Considerations for extending the CAT model to encompass other types of questions rather than multiple-choice or multiple-response questions are also presented

Mobile application usability heuristics: Decoupling context-of-use

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights are reserved by the Publisher. This is the accepted manuscript version of a conference paper which has been published in final form at ttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58634-2_30Context-of-use is a vital consideration when evaluating the usability of mobile applications. Thus, when defining sets of heuristics for the usability evaluation of mobile applications, a common practice has been to include one or more heuristics that consider context-of-use. Yet, most evaluations are conducted within usability labs. Consequently, the aim of this research is to question the utility of attempting to include inherently complex areas of context-of-use within limited sets of mobile application usability heuristics. To address this, a mapping study uncovered six sets of heuristics that can be applied to mobile application usability evaluations. A within-subjects empirical test with six Human-Computer Interaction practitioners evaluated a well-known travel mobile application using three sets of the mapped heuristics. The study found that the common practice of including context-of-use within mobile application usability heuristics is an ineffective approach

On Instance Weighted Clustering Ensembles

© ESANN, 2023. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at: www.esann.org/proceedings/2023Ensemble clustering is a technique which combines multipleclustering results, and instance weighting is a technique which highlightsimportant instances in a dataset. Both techniques are known to enhanceclustering performance and robustness. In this research, ensembles andinstance weighting are integrated with the spectral clustering algorithm.We believe this is the first attempt at creating diversity in the generativemechanism using density based instance weighting for a spectral ensemble.The proposed approach is empirically validated using synthetic datasetscomparing against spectral and a spectral ensemble with random instanceweighting. Results show that using the instance weighted sub-samplingapproach as the generative mechanism for an ensemble of spectral cluster-ing leads to improved clustering performance on datasets with imbalancedclusters.Peer reviewe

The generation of automated student feedback for a computer-adaptive test

This paper marks further progression on research previously undertaken at the University of Hertfordshire on the use of computer-adaptive tests (CATs) in Higher Education. Findings from two previous empirical studies by the authors suggested that the CAT approach was a fair assessment method, capable of offering accurate and consistent measurement of student abilities. Participants in a pedagogical evaluation of the application indicated that one of the limitations of the approach was the type of the feedback provided to students. According to the evaluators, the sole provision of a score would not help students to detect their educational needs. Providing students with a copy of all questions they got wrong did not seem an attractive option either, as it could jeopardise the re-use of these questions in future assessment sessions. Furthermore, it seemed unlikely that providing students with the questions alone, without any comment or explanation, would foster research and/or reflection skills. This paper reports on our most recent empirical study, in which the ability estimate θ for each student in each section of the CAT test was used to generate automated feedback based on Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive abilities. The feedback was then sent directly to individual students via personal email. In the first section of this paper, we present an overview of our CAT research followed by the main characteristics of the feedback tool we designed and implemented. In the final section of this paper, we present the results a summary of how learners performed on the CAT, along with student attitude towards the automated feedback. In addition, we present our views on how the work described here can be developed further

Towards a Capability Maturity Framework: Adopting the universal elements of Digital Capability Maturity as an Organisational Strategy

As technology continues to evolve, there is a need for organisations to develop the ability to assess themselves and find ways to not only survive but also flourish in the dynamic economy. This paper reports part of the findings from a more extensive research work that aims to develop a Digital Capability Maturity (DCM) Framework for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Such a framework would allow organisations to leverage their capabilities for differential value. A systematic review was undertaken to uncover the key elements contributing to DCM, to stand as a baseline for the Maturity Framework. The objective of this paper is to report on the proposed standardisation for elements of DCM. A universal taxonomy is proposed suggesting these themes should be present in any organisational attempts to formalise digital initiatives. Furthermore, to maximise the impact of DCM on quality of output, the proposed framework must adopt the ecological systems perspective

Revising Max-min for Scheduling in a Cloud Computing Context

Paper presented at the 2017 IEEE 26th International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE), Poznan, Poland, 21-23 June 2017. © 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Adoption of Cloud Computing is on the rise[1] and many datacenter operators adhere to strict energy efficiency guidelines[2]. In this paper a novel approach to scheduling in a Cloud Computing context is proposed. The algorithm Maxmin Fast Track (MXFT) revises the Max-min algorithm to better support smaller tasks with stricter Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which makes it more relevant to Cloud Computing. MXFT is inspired by queuing in supermarkets, where there is a fast lane for customers with a smaller number of items. The algorithm outperforms Max-min in task execution times and outperforms Min-min in overall makespan. A by-product of investigating this algorithm was the development of simulator called “ScheduleSim”[3] which makes it simpler to prove a scheduling algorithm before committing to a specific scheduling problem in Cloud Computing and therefore might be a useful precursor to experiments using the established simulator CloudSim[4].Final Accepted Versio