Usability Issues in Mobile-Wireless Information Systems

Abstract

Introduction The evolution of technology in the fields of handheld devices like cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) and smart-phones and in the field of wireless communications increased the development of mobile-wireless information systems, which can be used ubiquitously. Mobile-wireless information systems can create benefits for organizations; such as productivity enhancement, processes and procedures flexibility, customer services improvement and information accuracy for decision makers, which together emphasize competitive strategy, lower operation costs, and improved processes (Lau, 2006; Lee, 2003; Lovell, 1995). But, on the other hand, they face new kinds of problems: narrow bands, small devices, tiny screens and diversity of users and devices. These problems threaten the quality of such systems (Terho, 2002), including the usability quality characteristic, which is one of the characteristics that compose the multi-dimension concept of information systems' quality. Research on quality of information systems has been focused on traditional (Kan, 2002) and internet information systems (Calero, Ruiz, & Piattini, 2004; Covella & Olsina, 2006). The special mobile-wireless information systems characteristics require a different quality definition. In order to define the level of quality of a mobile-wireless information system, there is a need to measure, among others, the usability characteristic. This paper introduces the various definitions of usability and presents new metrics, defined according to Gafni's methodology (2008), to measure the usability of mobile-wireless information systems. The metrics were defined and empirically validated. Mobile-Wireless Information Systems Schiller (2000) describes two mobility dimensions: user mobility which allows connection to the system from different geographical sites and device mobility which enables mobility of both user and system. This research focuses on mobile-wireless information systems, allowing the users to be connected any time at any place, using handheld devices such as PDAs or cellular phones connected via a wireless network. There are two classifications of mobile-wireless applications: horizontal and vertical (Stafford & Gillenson, 2003). Horizontal applications are general, adaptable to a wide range of users and organizations, e.g.: e-mail, browsers, and file transfer applications. Vertical applications are specific to a type of users or organizations, for example: financial applications, such as money transfer, stock exchange and information inquiry; marketing and advertising applications according to the actual user position, i.e., pushing coupons to stores and information about sales nearby; emergency applications to check real-time information from government and medical databases and utility companies applications used by technicians and meter readers. There were unsuccessful attempts to develop mobile-wireless information systems at the beginning of the millennium, since technology, devices and infrastructures were immature (Sult & Lee, 2003). This situation changed during 2003, and analysts agreed that this kind of systems will grow and their market share will expand (Lau, 2006; Lee, 2003). The major reasons are emergence of third generation wireless networks (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System [UMTS], Code division multiple access [CDMA2000 1x] and General Packet Radio Service [GPRS]), their coverage expansion and development of smart mobile devices. There are several advantages of using these systems in the place and time of the event occurrence, in particular, productivity enhancement, resource allocation flexibility, competitive advantages, service improvements and information accuracy (Malladi & Agrawal, 2002). Usability--A Measurable Quality Characteristic Measuring creates a quantitative description which allows behavior comprehension and enables selection of tools and techniques to control and improve processes, products and resources. …