Heuristic Evaluation for Mobile Groupware: Evaluating Two Audience Response Systems

Abstract

In conferences, congresses and symposia, there are issues that may be handled by applications running in mobile devices. In these environments, Audience Response Systems can be used to increase iteration between participants. This paper aims to evaluate the usability of two Audience Response Systems, namely Simple Question and Voting, developed for collaborative proposals. We employed a set of 15 heuristics for mobile groupware evaluation, which includes three fundamental aspects of mobile groupware applications: HCI, mobilit y, and collabo ration. In the evaluation performed in this work, three specialists used the heuristics to evaluate both systems interfaces. The evaluation was conducted in three steps: (i) exploration of the system and its features; (ii) usability evaluation; (iii) consolidation of the collected data and reflection. The evaluation results of Simple Question and Voting indicated than both are in accordance with some usability aspects. However, we also identified common problems, such as non-appropriate communication methods, low coordination, and group management. Based on the results and experiences obtained over this evaluation, we argue that the heuristic set presented is applicable to evaluate mobile groupware usability. Keywords: heuristic evaluation, mobile groupware, usability.