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Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment
Includes bibliographical references
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| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Department of Computer Science
2016
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| _version_ | 1867611274441916416 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Chang, Genevieve |
| author2 | Kuttel, Michelle Mary |
| author_browse | Chang, Genevieve Kuttel, Michelle Mary |
| author_facet | Kuttel, Michelle Mary Chang, Genevieve |
| author_sort | Chang, Genevieve |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes bibliographical references |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/17398 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publishDateRange | 2016 |
| publishDateSort | 2016 |
| publisher | Department of Computer Science |
| publisherStr | Department of Computer Science |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/17398 Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment Chang, Genevieve Kuttel, Michelle Mary Information Technology Computer Science software development Includes bibliographical references With over 1.3 million applications on the Android marketplace, there is increasing competition between mobile applications for customer sales. As usability is a significant factor in an application's success, many mobile developers refer to the Android design guidelines when designing the user interface (UI). These principles help to provide consistency of navigation and aesthetics, with the rest of the Android platform. However, misinterpretation of the abstract guidelines may mean that patterns and elements selected to organise content of an application do not improve the usability. Therefore, usability tests would be beneficial to ensure that an application meets objectives efficiently and improve on user experience. Usability testing is an important and crucial step in the mobile development process Many freelance developers, however, have limited resources for usability testing, even though the advantages of usability feedback during initial development stages are clear and can save time and money in the long-run. In this thesis, we investigate which method of usability testing is most useful for resource constrained mobile developers. To test the efficacy of Android guidelines, three alternate designs of a unique Android tablet application, Glycano, are developed. High-fidelity paper prototypes were presented to end-users for usability testing and to usability experts for heuristic evaluations. Both usability and heuristic tests demonstrated that following the Android guidelines aids in user familiarity and learnability. Regardless of the different UI designs of the three mockups, Android guidelines provided an initial level of usability by providing familiarity to proficient users and an intuitiveness of certain patterns to new users. However, efficiency in building Glycano schematics was an issue that arose consistently. Testing with end-users and experts, revealed several navigational problems. Usability experts uncovered more general UI problems than the end-user group, who focused more on the content of the application. More refinements and suggestions of additional features to enhance usability and user experience were provided by the experts. Use of usability experts would therefore be most advantageous in initial design stages of an application. Feedback from usability testing is, however, also beneficial and is more valuable than not performing any test at all. 2016-02-29T13:24:09Z 2016-02-29T13:24:09Z 2015 Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17398 eng application/pdf Department of Computer Science Faculty of Science University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Information Technology Computer Science software development Chang, Genevieve Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment |
| title_full | Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment |
| title_fullStr | Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment |
| title_full_unstemmed | Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment |
| title_short | Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment |
| title_sort | designing an effective user interface for the android tablet environment |
| topic | Information Technology Computer Science software development |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17398 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT changgenevieve designinganeffectiveuserinterfacefortheandroidtabletenvironment |