Extending mobile app analytics for usability test logging

Abstract

Mobile application development is characterized by reduced development cycles and high time-to-market pressure. Usability evaluation in mobile applications calls for the application of cost-effective methods, specially adapted to such constraints. We propose extending the Google Analytics for Mobile Applications basic service to store specific low-level user actions of interest for usability evaluation purposes. The solution can serve both for lab usability testing, automating quantitative data gathering, and for logging real use after application release. It is based on identification of relevant user tasks and the detailed events worth gathering, instrumentation of specific code for data gathering, and subsequent data extraction for calculating relevant usability–related variables. We validated our application in a real usability test by comparing the automatically gathered data with the information gathered by the human observer. Results shows both measurements are statistically exchangeable, opening promising new ways to perform usability testing cost-effectively and at greater scale.