Factors that influence the quality of usability in mobile software!

Mobile apps are evolving rapidly making ubiquitous information, accessible anytime and anywhere across

diverse devices. This has meant an increased need for ensuring the usability of the apps on the mobile

and not just the functionality of the apps. Some of the common factors that influence usability of mobile

software are:

Adopting PC approaches directly for mobile software

Most programmers who work on mobile software were trained to develop software for the desktop

environment. There are many standardized practices in such a development environment and

programmers with relatively low usability knowledge / experience can borrow standard interfaces and

libraries and create usable programs.

In the case of mobile software things have not evolved as much. Moreover, for each mobile platform,

there are new set of standards, technology used is different, look and operations are also different

between platforms. This adds to the complexity of mobile software while adopting desktop approaches to

developing them.

Direct porting of software between different mobile and embedded platforms

It is necessary to make the mobile software support diverse mobile platforms. Just look at the

complexities here, different platforms are technologically different, and the programs have to be re-

developed for each of them. Interface also needs to take into account the architecture and phone models.

This means the programming community needs to acquire a wide range of knowledge, which is not

common place. This effectively affects the usability for same programs being migrated between platforms.

Market environment of software industry is fast paced, making more and more releases in the

shortest possible time

Faster time to market is the motto of most software organizations and rightly so. However, it needs to be

faster and better and not just faster. Most often than not, it is only the functionality that is given

importance and the non-functional items are given a miss in the quest to release software faster to

market. It is the non-functional needs like usability that assumes importance when it comes to mobile

software and this has to be clearly thought-out as a part of the software release.

Lack of trained specialists in mobile software

Usability as a body of knowledge itself hasn’t gained acceptance in the IT software development industry.

This is more so when it comes to mobile software, for things are evolving only now. There is not a

common body of knowledge that sufficiently addresses the interface development needs of desktop,

mobile and embedded applications. Lack of this body of knowledge means lack of trained specialists in

mobile software.

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