Mobile usability evaluation: the case of the Art Encounters 2017 application

Usability evaluation is a crucial step in ensuring the success and adoption of a mobile application. Several usability evaluation techniques have been developed over the time, each one with its own advantages. In this paper, we present a usability test that was done for the mobile application Art Encounters 2017, an app developed by Politehnica University of Timisoara, that promotes the Romanian biennial contemporary art exhibition with the same name. We applied the observation session and the focus group techniques, having as participants 20 students attending an Interactivity and Usability master course. The usability test indicates issues in the areas of navigation, menu, event searching and filtering, or getting to a venue, and received suggestions from the participants on how to further improve the application. Based on the result an improved version is to be developed for the next year event. Author