Rigour meets relevance when usability goes mobile

When we do traditional usability tests on applications using stationary computers the context is controlled and not especially relevant. The computers in the labs are more or less in the same context as when they are used in offices and homes. But for mobile devices, testing might make the result irrelevant since it fails to take the context of its use into consideration. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usability testing methods and theories from a mobile perspective. This is to find out if and where the conventional usability methods fail and what they fail to detect when applied to mobile devices. How can the usability methods of today be extended to facilitate the testing of mobile devices in its right context? This paper is based on our previous studies and gives a brief overview of our field of work so far. It is written in two parts so to speak where the first part ends at chapter: Further research and that is also where the second part begins. Further research is a rather long chapter with our plans for future studies, it begins with further studies based on the findings from the article and ends with a scenario for our next study.

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