An Empirical Investigation of Emulators in Mobile Web Research

In spite of affordability, portability, and convenience of mobile handheld devices, there are a number of usability problems associated with Web access through those devices, largely attributable to their inherent physical constraints. In the past decade, there have been increasing empirical studies on interface issues and usability of mobile handheld devices and mobile Web. However, researchers have been frequently using emulators of handheld devices running on desktop computers instead of real, physical handheld devices in those studies. Such a phenomenon raises validity and generalizability concerns given the differences between emulators and physical devices. This research empirically investigates whether the user performance and perception of mobile Web on an emulator is equivalent to or at least consistent with that on a physical device. The findings suggest that an emulator may not be able to emulate user performance and perception with physical handheld devices, and thus should be used with caution.