In an era where mobile games dominate the global entertainment landscape, understanding what drives player satisfaction has become both a commercial imperative and a theoretical challenge. This study examines the satisfaction dynamics of three top-performing games-BGMI, Clash of Clans, and Squad-through the lens of Expectation-Disconfirmation Theory. Using a mixed-methods approach, the authors analyzed over 55,000 Google Play Store reviews, combining sentiment analysis, version tracking, and thematic content examination. The results reveal significant variation in user satisfaction, with Clash of Clans showing remarkable consistency, BGMI showing a troubling downward trend, and Squad showing volatility driven by monetization criticism and update quality. While previous studies have addressed general satisfaction metrics, the research uniquely examines how disconfirmation types, developer responsiveness, and update strategies intersect to influence user ratings across genres.

This article considers the visual appearance of a virtual agent designed to take over the driving task in a highly automated car, to answer the question of which visual appearance is appropriate for a virtual agent in a driving role. The authors first selected five models of visual appearance thanks to a picture sorting procedure (N = 19). Then, they conducted a survey-based study (N = 146) using scales of trust, anthropomorphism, and likability to assess the appropriateness of those five models from an early-prototyping perspective. They found that human and mechanical-human models were more trusted than other selected models in the context of highly automated cars. Instead, animal and mechanical-animal ones appeared to be less suited to the role of a driving assistant. Learnings from the methodology are discussed, and suggestions for further research are proposed.

This study determined the factors that influenced the usability of a mobile-based intelligent agent called “AskRed.” The design-related factors were evaluated in terms of performance, accuracy, responsiveness, aesthetics, and completeness. The usability of the software was determined in terms of satisfaction and intention to re-use the software. The software received favorable ratings from the students. Experts' software evaluation recommended strengthening the design of the intelligent agent in terms of security, performance, completeness, and ease-of-use. Multiple regression analyses showed that performance and completeness influenced satisfaction and intention to re-use. Aesthetics and responsiveness influenced satisfaction but not intention to re-use. Responsiveness had a negative impact on satisfaction. The predictive powers of the regression equations are 58% and 73%. This study provided empirical evidence on the predictors of usability of an intelligent agent used in a university setting.

Many driving scenarios involve correctly perceiving road elements in depth and manually responding as appropriate. Of late, augmented reality (AR) head-up displays (HUDs) have been explored to assist drivers in identifying road elements, by using a myriad of AR interface designs that include world-fixed graphics perceptually placed in the forward driving scene. Volumetric AR HUDs purportedly offer increased accuracy of distance perception through natural presentation of oculomotor cues as compared to traditional HUDs. In this article, the authors quantify participant performance matching virtual objects to real-world counterparts at egocentric distances of 7-12 meters while using both volumetric and fixed-focal plane AR HUDs. The authors found the volumetric HUD to be associated with faster and more accurate depth judgements at far distance, and that participants performed depth judgements more quickly as the experiment progressed. The authors observed no differences between the two displays in terms of reported simulator sickness or eye strain.

A substantial amount of research has been conducted to investigate the effects of physical and cognitive changes on smartphone task performance. Prior research examined the effects of age difference and smartphone visual search tasks. The results confirmed the effects of age on task performance. Several surprising findings emerged during the processing of the data. Aside from task performance, differences in demographic characteristics and smartphone usage habits were found between elderly and other age groups. After reviewing literature, the authors found that there has not been any research on how demographic characteristics or usage behaviors may be related to smartphone task performance. The objectives of this present study are to examine how demographic characteristics correlated to smartphone task performance and to compare general and senior users. The results showed differences between general and senior users in term of demographic characteristics and smartphone usage behaviors. The analysis found that both demographic factors and usage behavior correlated with task performance.

Visual aesthetics is a success criterion for mobile apps. Despite considerable research on graphical user interface (GUI) assessments, there is a lack of studies investigating the reliability and validity of scale types on visual aesthetics as a unidimensional construct. In this study, 208 subjects were divided into four groups, each using a different rating scale and the VisAWI-S questionnaire as the golden standard, to assess the visual aesthetics of nine mobile GUIs. As a result, all scales showed excellent inter-rater reliability and good agreement. Seven-point scales resulted in slightly higher intra-rater reliability than those with five points, but agreement was lower using five-point Likert scales. All scales have shown to be valid compared with VisAWI-S and presented strong correlations pairwise. Results indicate that any of these scales are suitable to assess mobile GUI visual aesthetics reliably and validly as long as response quality is analyzed. This work supports the adoption of single-item questionnaires reducing effort and time, especially in large-scale assessment designs.

This research investigated the relationship between smartphone addiction (SA) and autism quotient, considering the indirect effect of theory of mind (ToM). This research successfully recruited 399 smartphone users to complete self-reported measures for SA, ToM, and autism quotient. Initial results with Pearson's correlation revealed a significant negative relationship between excessive smartphone use and ToM. A significant negative correlation was observed between ToM and the gauged autism quotient. However, the measured SA did not correlate significantly with the autism quotient. From the path analysis, the measured SA did not predict autism quotient and ToM significantly, whereas the measured ToM significantly predicted autism quotient. The negative relationship supports that individuals with established ToM are less likely to develop characteristics of autism. The estimated indirect effect was not significant, implying that ToM did not mediate the direct effect of SA on autism quotient. Implications and limitations are further discussed in this manuscript.