Mobile QoE exploration: an unsupervised field study in an Argentine Patagonian city

Abstract

Mobile devices are the main Internet access means today. Smartphones’ capabilities added to the growth of wireless networks, enable millions of people to take advantage of resources, contents and applications for different purposes on a daily basis. A degraded performance can be produced by different factors and users can undergo unsatisfactory experiences. Therefore, Quality of Experience (QoE) is a research topic of wide interest, which provides methods to analyze the general acceptability of an application or service, as subjectively perceived by the end user. This perception can be influenced by users’ expectations and their context. The QoE can be analyzed through subjective metrics obtained from questionnaires and/or surveys and/or objective metrics calculated automatically from the device’s properties and Quality of Service (QoS). This work presents the findings of an unsupervised field study conducted over 17 days in the city Rio Gallegos, Argentina, to explore mobile QoE. Furthermore, the correspondence between the objective observations and the users’ opinions were analyzed to identify contextual conditions that can influence the obtained results. For this reason, the CovidInfo application was developed and publicly shared. Using their own mobile devices in everyday context, 31 users interacted with the CovidInfo application, recording values for eight objective metrics and users’ opinion. The total data set collected consisted of 16990 records. The analysis of the CovidInfo application yielded positive results, while 89% of the registered values corresponded to a good QoE. This allowed establishing a relationship between the values recorded for the objective metrics and those of the users’ opinion, both of which showed good values (88% and 97%, respectively).