Evaluation of Usability of Korean Logistics in Life Startups’ Mobile Applications

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the usability of Korean logistics in life (LIL) startups mobile apps that aim to provide more convenience and a better quality of life. Determining an app’s usability requires a different set of evaluation criteria from that of desktop sites or full sites due to the inherent characteristics of the mobile environment. This paper derived 10 evaluation criteria from a literature review, calculated the weights of each criterion, and performed a usability test for 14 Korean LIL apps involving 27 subjects. To highlight areas of improvement, a comparison was done using a top ranked app on Google Play which had the best score in terms of usability (in 10 items test) among the best Korean LIL app. The average usability score of the LIL apps represented an overall lack of high usability. The evaluation criteria of the apps showed higher scores in the error-free, prediction, and consistency variables categories. In contrast, this was not the case for effectiveness, usefulness, and interaction, which were relatively low. Usability and interest had a slightly negative relationship when implementing big data analytics. From the quadrants analysis, it was found that for most of the evaluation criteria, continuous improvement was needed. As a result of logistics 4.0, the number of LIL apps is growing rapidly. This paper is the first to define the concept of LIL and develop an evaluation model for usability, which was then used to identify the ease of use, learnability, effectiveness, and efficiency of representative LIL apps in Korea.