AQUArIUM - A suite of software measures for HCI quality evaluation of ubiquitous mobile applications

Abstract

Five characteristics for HCI evaluation in ubiquitous applications are selected.Twenty-four quality measures to evaluate these five characteristics are proposed.A theoretical and empirical validations were performed. Ubiquitous computing has changed the way users interact with technology. Its applications are everywhere, supporting users in everyday activities in a transparent way with little or no need for attention. To ensure the adoption of these applications, it is essential to assess the quality of the interaction with its users. To do that, measurements can be applied to obtain data about quality characteristics in a software product. In a previous study about quality characteristics and software measures for ubiquitous computing, we have identified a gap in the literature regarding software measures for evaluating essential quality characteristics in ubiquitous systems. Therefore, this paper proposes a suite of well-defined software measures (twenty-four in total), called AQUArIUM, to evaluate human-computer interaction (HCI) in ubiquitous applications for mobile devices. These measures address five quality characteristics of ubiquitous computing: Context-awareness, Mobility, Attention, Calmness and Transparency. The proposed suite was validated theoretically and empirically. The results showed not only that the suite is feasible, but also that it indicates specific problems of HCI quality, which are helpful in improving the evaluated ubiquitous mobile application.