Cellular phone and PDA usability screening is critical on your business. Actually mobile and handheld functionality testing could possibly be even more important than computer-based usability testing. The main reasons for this are:
– The number of persons accessing the web from portable and handheld devices is normally increasing at a massive charge – in 2008 by themselves there’ll end up being an estimated 54.99 million PDAs sold around the world.
– People generally have a lot less experience of using their mobile to continue online than they do of using their laptop. This means that computer-based users may be assumed to have a higher level of existing expertise than mobile and handheld users.
— The platform whereby users gain access to your site is usually far less foreseen when using mobile phone devices. Computer-based prospects generally just differ from one another in their internet browser and os (i. at the. most people will use a screen, mouse button and keyboard), whereas different types of mobile phones and PDAs are different can substantially.
Which usually mobile phones and PDAs do you need to consider?
Mobiles and PDAs can differ from another noticeably, and this might radically modification how persons experience and use websites. Some of the ways in which handheld devices can differ incorporate:
– Screen-size (small vs . large)
– Display screen layout (portrait vs . landscape)
– Input system (stylus, laceup.ondertussen.nl numeric keypad, dial-wheel, QWERTY keypad)
Because the cellular phone / PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT that an individual is employing will have these kinds of a serious effect on their experience of your websites, you should try to evaluate with as many mobile phones and PDAs as is feasible.
Of course , diagnostic tests with every cellphone and PDA is out of the question. Here are some ideas to help narrow down the number of products you’ll need to check with:
– Your mobile phone site visitors may possibly belong to a selected audience. A number of audiences tend to prefer particular types of phones (e. g. mobile phones with big screens that can support internet access vs . small-screen types that aren’t).
– There are ‘phone families’ that offer the same user encounter (and will not likely need to be tested individually).
– You may only want to test when using the most well-known mobile phones in Europe as well as most well-liked models that are to be used to access your site (you can check your site statistics to find out this kind of information).
Who do you want to test with?
The people you need to conduct your mobile phone usability testing classes with can, of course , depend on your particular organization and its audience. Some things to keep in mind include:
— How much experience they should have got of using their mobile phones to locate services. This is particularly important as the market pertaining to accessing via the internet services through mobile phones is growing and the percent of ‘complete novices’ (i. e. persons using the technology for the first time) will be far higher than designed for computer users of the website.
— Which cellphone or PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT they have. We might usually advise that people work with their own cellphone in a workout, so the test can focus on your website and not on the way the handheld device performs.
Exactly where should cellular usability tests sessions always be conducted?
Cell phones and PDAs are used in the real world and so usability testing of hand held devices will need to therefore not merely take place in a usability clinical.
Where, the moment and how a mobile phone can be used is critical into a person’s connection with the site they are accessing. One of the following instances could affect this knowledge and therefore factors of the site’s usability:
— Lighting
– Background sound
– Interruptions
– Concurrent tasks (i. e. nearly anything the person is doing at the same time)
– Physical movement
As such, there was recommend, if you can, that any kind of mobile phone and PDA usability testing can be conducted both in a clinical and also in the ‘outside world’.
How you schedule and manage mobile phone wonderful sessions will be based on your organization and its target audience, but the the majority of popular methods of mobile usability testing contain:
– Lab-based (using a camera to record the session)
– Diary-studies (asking people to keep a journal of how they may have used all their mobile phone and any problems they encounter)
– Paper prototypes (running usability tests on a paper based version for the site, employing mobile phone screen-sized pieces of paper)