Classification and taxonomy of mobile application usability issues
Pawel Weichbroth
TL;DR
This study tackles fragmentation in mobile usability research by triangulating a systematic literature review with expert interviews. It constructs a comprehensive catalog of 16 usability issue categories, consolidates them into a three-tier app–user–resource (AUR) classification, and grounds them in a hierarchical taxonomy with 228 keywords. The work combines a PRISMA-guided SLR and in-vivo coding from practitioners to validate and generalize core usability themes, while acknowledging external factors like network speed and hardware constraints. Practical implications include a ready-to-use checklist and vocabulary for UX designers, QA teams, and software analysts, along with directions for future measurement models and QA tooling.
Abstract
Despite years of research on testing the usability of mobile applications, our understanding of the issues their users experience still remains fragmented and underexplored. While most earlier studies has provided interesting insights, they have varying limitations in methodology, input diversity, and depth of analysis. On the contrary, this study employs a triangulation strategy, using two research methods (systematic literature review and interview) and two data sources (scholarly literature and expert knowledge) to explore the traits underlying usability issues. Our study contributes to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) by presenting a catalog of 16 usability issue categories, enriched with corresponding keywords and extended into a taxonomy, as well as a novel three-tier app-user-resource (AUR) classification system. At the first app level, usability issues arise from user interface design, as well as from efficiency, errors, and operability. At the second user level, they influence cognitive load, effectiveness, ease of use, learnability, memorability, and understandability. At the third resource level, usability issues stem from network quality and hardware, such as battery life, CPU speed, physical device button size and availability, RAM capacity, and screen size. The root cause of the usability issues is the user interface design. Detailed findings and takeaways for both researchers and practitioners are also discussed. Further research could focus on developing a measurement model for the identified variables to confirm the direction and strength of their relationships with perceived usability. Software vendors can also benefit by updating existing quality assurance programs, reviews and audits tools, as well as testing checklists.