An Empirical Study of Mobile Application Usability: A Unified Hierarchical Approach

Mobile app usability has been attracting the attention of academics and practitioners for sometime because well-designed mobile apps can build a close link between businesses and users in addition to enhancing user experiences. To better understand mobile app usability, this study develops a unified hierarchical approach that characterizes mobile app usability from the high level of "usability principles" to the intermediary level of "usability attributes" to the detailed level of "usability features" to assess the usability of current mobile apps from different categories. Using an online survey, we identified a set of usability design features that are common to all categories of apps. Furthermore, the study identifies a set of important and less important usability features within specific mobile app categories. In addition to the practical implications consisting of insights for mobile app design, the study found important relationships among usability principles, attributes, and features.