Are HCI issues a big factor in supply chain mobile apps?

Abstract

A previous survey about the use of iPhone and/or iPad apps in supply chain operations learned that the use of such apps varies greatly among different individuals and different organizations, with many respondents using apps, but not for supply chain operations [1]. In product design, an aspect of growing importance is its usability. This raises the question that is the focus of the paper. Namely, are human-computer interaction (HCI) issues a factor being addressed in the mobile apps for supply chain management? It appears that addressing HCI issues for most any kind of commercial mobile app seems to have had little focus, even though some usability problems are well-known. Nielsen summarized this as "the user experience of mobile websites and apps has improved since our last research, but we still have far to go" [2]. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.