A remote usability testing platform for mobile phones

Mobile devices are getting more and more popular in people's daily life, but their usability becomes a key issue that affects their acceptance by users. Traditional usability testing methods and platforms cannot easily fit into the mobile environment, because the lab settings are not the same as the real environment where they are used. However, the advances in computing power and wireless network bring new opportunities to the usability research. This paper discusses the challenges and presents a new method for testing the usability of mobile phones. This method utilizes the computing power of the so-called “Smart Phone” to record the user's activities, such as actions, sound and screen. The recorded data are then transferred via the Wi-Fi network to the observer's side in a silent manner without disturbing the user. Experiments were conducted to see whether this method meets the requirement of remote usability testing. The results showed that the data recording could work efficiently without disturbing the user, and the data transfer could be timeliness in an environment with good signal. We believe that this method can be a practical way to study the usability of mobile phones.