Usability Evaluation Framework for Ubiquitous Computing Device

Abstract

With the development of electronic engineering technology, diversifications of devices are being created. Moreover, computing machines are more accessible and with the development of communication technology, entrance of new products related with ubiquitous paradigm are appearing. Ubiquitous computing device are connected within it, and they are convergence. Consequently, there is need of new methodology of device evaluation. In this paper, by collecting and integrating the current usability factor and ubiquitous characteristic factors, Ubiquitous Evaluation Factors are derived. Usability evaluation of each part of the Ubiquitous device, decomposition is performed. It is able to obtain the evaluation score of the device components from usability evaluation and score of the evaluation done in each usability factor. This framework is developed by web-based system allowing real product evaluation, and making comparison of the usability evaluation score obtained. Though this framework, usability test on ubiquitous device is simplified and systematized. Third 2008 International Conference on Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology 978-0-7695-3407-7/08 $25.00

Challenges for usability testing in ubiquitous systems

“…However, most papers performed usability evaluation in Smart Homes [2,10,11,12,13] and Navigating System [14,15,16,17,18]. Other work performed usability evaluation in other domains [7,9,19,20,21,22] or not really performed any evaluation [8,23,24,25].…”

“…Most usability testing is performed in the laboratory. However, according to Kim et al [8], the traditional controlled laboratory tests are not suitable for ubiquitous applications. This is due to the large number of resources demanded to the environment required by ubiquitous systems, which must be the same used in real environment [12].…”

“…Most of the identified measures are the same used in traditional usability testing systems, for example: List of Tasks Performed [9,13,14,15,18,20], Learnability [15,20,22,25]; Response time [2,14,16,25] and User Satisfaction [7,11,13,14]. Only three papers [8,19,24] have identified measures that consider the characteristics of ubiquitous systems. Other papers did not provide measures for usability testing [7,10,18].…”

“…Moreover, few papers presented specific approaches to usability evaluation for ubiquitous applications and, these approaches that have been identified are not specific to usability tests. In fact, we just found out evaluation frameworks [8,10], usability evaluation processes [11] and measures of usability evaluation in ubiquitous systems [2,19].…”

“…From the viewpoint of HCI, one of the best and most used methods for evaluating ubiquitous systems is usability testing (e.g., see [7,8,9]). …”