Towards supporting learnability of touch-screen mobile applications

Abstract

Applications for mobile devices are quickly becoming more complex, resulting in users being empowered to perform more advanced tasks. At the same time mobile user interfaces introduce several challenges to users of traditional interfaces, such as direct manipulation, gesture control, predominance of visual feedback, or limited screen size. These factors could affect the learnability of mobile applications in a negative way. The primary objective of this research project is to investigate how people learn to use mobile applications and how this process can be supported. This needs to be done so that people can perceive the value of the application, accomplish basic tasks and gradually learn new features in a natural way. This would result in a higher degree of productivity for the user. A pilot study will consist of observation of users’ behaviour in the context of skill acquisition within mobile user interfaces. Patterns in users’ behaviour and links between behaviour and background information obtained by questionnaire will be investigated. It is anticipated that the study will demonstrate the correlation between learning strategies and personal information about users. The results of this study will aid in creating learning profiles of representative user groups. Further examination of these profiles should lead to the design of support mechanisms that will encourage various types of application learners in the process of continuous learning of mobile applications.