My App is an Experiment: Experience from User Studies in Mobile App Stores

BIB
Henze, Niels and Pielot, Martin and Poppinga, Benjamin and Schinke, Torben and Boll, Susanne and
International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction
Experiments are a cornerstone of HCI research. Mobile distribution channels such as Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market have created the opportunity to bring experiments to the end user. Hardly any experience exists how to conduct such experiments successfully. This article reports about five experiments that we conducted by publishing Apps in the Android Market. The Apps are freely available and have been installed more than 30,000 times. The outcomes of the experiments range from failure to valuable insights. Based on these outcomes we identified factors that account for the success of experiments using mobile application stores. When generalizing findings it must be considered that smartphone users are a non-representative sample of the world's population. Most participants can be obtained by informing users about the study when the App had been started for the first time. Because Apps are often used for a short time only, data should be collected as early as possible. To collect valuable qualitative feedback other channels than user comments and email have to be used. Finally, the interpretation of collected data has to consider unpredicted usage patterns to provide valid conclusions.
11 / 2011
article
HaptiMap
Haptic, Audio and Visual Interfaces for Maps and Location Based Services
InterMedia
Interactive Media with Personal Networked Devices
IGI Global