Quality Practitioners' Differing Perspectives on Future Software Quality Assurance Practices

Constant changes in business context and software development make it important to understand how software quality assurance (SQA) should respond. Examining SQA from supplier and client perspectives, this study explores how different groups of SQA practitioners perceive future needs. A survey (n = 93) conducted in fall 2017 explored the views of SQA organizations on future trends. The results indicate that SQA organizations differ slightly in their attitudes to quality categories, as do different groups of SQA practitioners. It is argued that these differences should be taken into account when developing and implement-ing future SQA strategy. It is further argued that the found basic enables SQA management, evaluation of new practices and allocation of resources to ensure that all quality categories remain balanced in the future.</p

From Usability to User Experience in Mobile Learning Applications

The current popularity of smartphones among students provides a valuable opportunity for educational institutes to use such devices as an alternative medium in their portfolio of educational offerings. Mobile learning (m-learning) aims to overcome the traditional constraints on education such as the place and the time at which learning must occur. Therefore, m-learning applications are intended to overcome any constraints by enabling the educational offering to happen regardless of the time and place. However, the importance of user experience factors in the development of m-learning has not yet been extensively investigated. The case study research methodology was applied to validate the mLUX framework. The mLUX validation criteria were set to measure the following three perspectives: the user's goal and motivation; the case study application's performance based on both educational components and user experience; and expert evaluations. The purpose of this dissertation was to create a framework to help designers develop an error free, usable, and adjustable mobile learning application that also engages students emotionally. To achieve this goal, the overall aim of the dissertation was to study and propose a user-centered design framework for the development of m-learning applications. The theoretical part of this dissertation is based, on one hand, on the author's previous research as published in the licentiate thesis and, on the other hand, on an in-depth literature review concerning m-learning usability and user experience. Hence, the conceptual framework has been constructed to help in the identification and introduction of a new development domain in the field of m-learning. The empirical part of this dissertation is divided into two categories. First, the section containing the product development case studies is predominantly targeted at practitioners, with those involved in academic research being the secondary targets. The product development case studies employed the principles and methods of human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centered design (UCD). The results contribute to the exploration, design, and development of a usability and user experience framework for an m-learning application (mLUX). The mLUX framework consists of three parts: role-players, the context of use, and the processes. The results of this study indicate that the applied user-centered design principles and methods ensure the usability of m-learning applications. However, as a concept, usability is not sufficient to emotionally attach users to an m-learning application. Therefore, this study recommends that user experience-related factors including delightfulness, reliability, satisfaction, and adjustability be considered as key factors when designing, developing, and implementing continuous usage for any m-learning application

User Experience of Mobile Virtual Reality (MVR): Experiment Changes Students’ attitude

Contemporary technological advancements, such as augmented reality and virtual reality, have extended smartphones’ capabilities further than ever before. These devices are especially popular among students for performing their educational activities. However, students are skeptical or hesitant to try new technologies for various physical and psychological reasons, such as lack of knowledge, wrong attitudes, and misperceptions of the ease of installation and usage. In this study, we investigated students’ mental models and perceptions of mobile virtual reality (MVR) application installation and usage. To achieve the research objective, we designed and developed an MVR case study application and conducted a usability evaluation, a user-experience assessment, and pre- and post-questionnaires. The questionnaires helped us compare the students’ attitude changes from before and after the case study experiment. Based on the results of this study, we elaborate the challenges, opportunities, and best practices associated with the MVR application’s design and development in an educational context. The results of this study will help practitioners design and develop robust MVR applications in an educational context and open up a new research domain for academicians on MVR design and development

User Experience Evolution of M-Learning Applications

The development of a mobile learning application is associated with many challenges including timely technology, richness of the learning content, pedagogy, usability, and the design of user experience. Users’ expectations and requirements on m-learning applications have evolved since the beginning of this millennium. The evolvement is mainly a result of the advancement of mobile technologies, devices, and network services. Users’ expectations are based on previous experiences, expertise level, and the context that users have previously worked. The focus of this paper is on mobile learning usability and user experience. We elaborate on m-learning applications’ user experience evolution from 2003 to 2016. The results demonstrate that usability needs to be complemented with user experience analysis when developing mlearning applications

mLUX: Usability and User Experience Development Framework for M-Learning

In this paper, we propose the mLUX framework, a model based on the user-centered design (UCD) framework, which is specifically for the development of m-learning applications. We present the results of four case studies conducted to develop m-learning applications in which the proposed mLUX framework was applied. The main goal of the proposed mLUX framework is to ensure that the stakeholders, especially students, recognize that m-learning applications are learning media that fulfill their essential educational requirements. We begin by reviewing the literature on the contributions to mobile learning usability made in various conferences and journals from 2002 to 2010. This review helped identify and recognize the methodology used to develop mobile learning applications during this period. Based on the literature review, as the empirical case studies, four m-learning applications are examined to demonstrate the performance of the proposed framework for the development of m-learning applications. We apply three distinct measurement criteria to assess the performances of the mLUX framework. This paper also argues that emotional factors, such as the user’s enjoyment, adjustability, and reliability, are significant design issues in m-learning

Embedding Virtual Objects Into the Physical World: Student-Centred Augmented Reality Concept Design and Development

In the contemporary world where almost, everything has moved towards digitalisation, the combination of virtual and physical worlds has proved to be an efficient approach in an educational context. Since the application of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) in education is on the rise, we recommend a conceptual framework for technology education. However, little is known about how students mix virtual and physical objects in solving everyday problems through prototyping and envisioning the potential solution. This study is based on the gathering and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data on students in higher education. In the first study, we collected (N = 100) information about potential problem-solving contexts for augmented and virtual reality applications. In addition, this study examines student (N = 62) projects in the AR and VR fields to generate new knowledge about co-creation activities in design processes. The results reveal that when students design and develop virtual objects in connection to the physical world, they learn more than just using digital technology alone. Combining the virtual with the physical world provides an extensive learning environment not only for digital problem solving but also for materialistic and physical surroundings. This paper contributes a new theoretical understanding for academicians about the role of AR in technology education and a conceptual framework for practitioners to enhance student learning through AR-based design projects

Rapid Prototyping of a Mobile SaaS Application

Rapidly developing a customizable mobile application and the related software as a service (SaaS) is challenging and rarely studied. Traditionally, SaaS solutions are mainly accessed using personal computers, but the mobile SaaS solutions are needed in the tourism sector, for example, where users are mobile. This paper presents a case study where the original need was to design a customizable mobile tourism guide service for use by several small tourism companies, and to assess its functionality in a field study. The result of applying the Vaadin 6 Java web framework and LAMP technologies was a robust mobile application SaaS prototype system that fulfilled the essential design needs in the eight field test cases. This study shows that the field testing of a mobile concept can be completed easier when using Vaadin Java web framework, as it provides support for cross-platform functionality and GUI design, and completes, for example, LAMP-based SaaS solution. However, results point it out that new digital navigation features were needed to develop or improved and mobile web approach causes some usability challenges especially in the compass based navigation and user tracking. This study provides an example of how to develop a SaaS-based mobile service prototyping environment, which is needed while field testing new B2B mobile services with various groups of stakeholders. Our case study analysis reveal that the Vaadin development environment facilitates the rapid prototyping for digital services in an affordable way. The overall contribution of this paper is predominantly for software engineers and web application developers

Assessments of User Centered Design Framework for M-learning Application Development

This paper presents the evaluation criteria and process of the User Centered Design (UCD) framework for m-learning application development. Based on the proposed UCD framework we have designed and developed five mobile learning applications for various sectors. The main aim of this paper is to argue how the UCD framework as development methodology has been successful in developing robust mobile learning applications. The UCD framework for m-learning application assessments criteria is based on three evaluation processes. 1. The acceptance of the application by target group (usability assessments) 2. The user experience assessment of the target m-learning application based on education components. 3. Qualitative research e.g. semi-structured interview with developers, designers and the owner of the application. The analysis of these assessments demonstrates varies aspect of the proposed UCD framework functionalities and performance

Analysing the implementation of two distinct pedagogical approaches in higher education institution

This paper aims to reveal the outcomes of two distinct mobile application concept design and development courses at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. These courses have applied dissimilar pedagogical approaches that aim to design and develop innovative mobile application for their target users. The main goal of these courses was to teach students to conduct user studies and collect users’ requirements and design application concept accordingly. ICT professionals nowadays are expected to communicate and work in multidisciplinary teams to reach overall business goals. As a result, universities by offering courses such as User Centered Design (UCD) and usability engineering related courses prepare students with better competences on their highly competitive job markets. This study pursuits to identify the best teaching approaches for innovative product concept development at higher educational institutes by comparing the results of the two distinct pedagogical approaches User Centered Design and Customer Journey Mapping

CASE STUDY: FROM REQUIREMENTS LIST TO AN EDUCATIONAL GAME

This paper explores the development process of an educational mobile game from the customer’s initial requirements list to a functional multi-platform mobile game prototype. The game was targeted for students, lecturers and visitors and was aimed to work as a new experimental teaching method that would adapt to various locations and premises. The development process was based mLUX usability and user experience development framework for m-learning. The process was utilized in order to design an application prototype that would appeal both to the customer and to the application’s target users. The customer had provided a preliminary list of application requirements in order to speed up the design and implementation phase of the mobile learning application prototype. After the initial application concept that was implemented using paper and wireframing tools, a functional multi-platform mobile application prototype was developed by utilizing the PhoneGap framework. Additionally, the game development process was used as a case study to assess the mLUX framework performance in various application contexts. This case study was done as a Bachelor of Science thesis at the HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences. The design and development process resulted in a mobile educational game that fulfilled the customer’s and potential users’ essential needs. Usability evaluation results demonstrated that the users were delighted with the application’s functionalities, UI and performanc