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Usability Heuristics for M-Commerce Apps

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Book cover Advances in Usability, User Experience and Assistive Technology (AHFE 2018)

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Abstract

Usability studies found that mobile users suffer from poor user experience which might explain the low spending of mobile-based commerce (m-commerce). This study focuses on identifying the usability heuristics to apply when evaluating the usability of m-commerce mobile apps. An integrated approach is applied considering the general usability heuristics developed by Nielsen, the Google Android design guidelines and Apple human interface guidelines. The proposed 13 heuristics are: “Visibility”, “Matching-Real-World”, “User-Control”, “Error-Prevention”, “Recognition”, “Flexibility-and-Efficient Use”, “Minimal Design”, “Diagnose-and-Recover”, “Help”, “Performance”, “Information–and-Visual-Hierarchy”, “Natural-Interaction”, and “Dynamic-Engagement”. Four usability experts test empirically the developed mobile usability heuristics against two mobile apps that are used for secondhand retailing where users can sell and buy used items. Usability violations are identified and severity is ranked. Mobile apps usability is an ever evolving and dynamic research playground. Many of research challenges posed by lack of a comprehensive tool to understand the usability in the context of m-commerce. This is the contribution of the present paper.

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Correspondence to Samar I. Swaid .

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Swaid, S.I., Suid, T.Z. (2019). Usability Heuristics for M-Commerce Apps. In: Ahram, T., Falcão, C. (eds) Advances in Usability, User Experience and Assistive Technology. AHFE 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 794. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94947-5_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94947-5_8

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