Usability Evaluation and Improvements of Mobile Travel Apps

Abstract

The popularization of smartphones allows people to instantly get the information that they want, through mobile apps, including financial services, movies and public transportation reservations, games and shopping. Furthermore, leisure activities through overseas travel are increasing due to the improvement of the living standards of people. These increases in overseas travel and the use of mobile apps lead to the increased use of mobile travel apps when booking tour packages. Although there are many studies on the usability assessment and user interface improvement for mobile apps, studies on the usability assessment for mobile travel apps are limited. We tested the usability for mobile travel apps to present some suggestions for improvements so that anyone can purchase travel packages easily and simply. We selected the top three mobile travel apps on Rankey.com that have different UIs. The heuristic method was used to evaluate usability. We present a better UI to allow users to use the app functions more easily by analyzing user interaction, ease of learning, readability, efficiency, and satisfaction for the entire use.