You are here: Home :: Area NEM :: Computer science

Markus Dahm, Christian Felken, Marc Klein-Bösing, Gert Rompel, Roman Stroick

On the Usability of Mobile Phones – Broad Study and Status Quo

A mobile phone the size of a candy bar offers dozens of complex functions, a masterpiece of engineering. Unfortunately, the more functions are available, the less they are accessible to the average user. The design of the user interface suffers from a lack of suitability for the tasks, does not conform with user expectations and a suboptimal self-descriptiveness. The usability of modern mobile phones was tested in a broad survey with over 1300 participants. An internet based simulation offered tasks and an online evaluation. It could be pointed out that mobile phones are not only hard to access for novices but also those who consider themselves experts have difficulties when confronted with unknown functions or another brand of phone. Approaches to increase the usability are discussed.

i-com, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag

Print ISSN: 1618-162X
Volume: 04, 01/2005
Pages: 026 - 033

Journal homepage (external site)

Show all available items of this journal

 

Area NEM