Development of Heuristics for Usability Evaluation of M-Commerce Applications

The evaluation of M-Commerce applications is becoming a must for both business and usability professionals. Heuristics evaluation of M-Commerce application seems to be a way out, but traditional heuristics were developed without any consideration for mobile computing. Therefore, the need to have domain specific heuristics is gradually gaining popularity, which have led to the development of domain specific heuristics for M-Health, M-Games and M-Museums, among others. In the light of this, there is a literature gap for the development of domain specific heuristics for M-Commerce applications, which this study seeks to address. The study presents the set of heuristics for M-Commerce applications in a pattern that is similar to traditional heuristics, but with much emphasis on the context of use. The study serves as initial work on the development of domain specific heuristics for the evaluation of M-Commerce applications. The proposed heuristics could be of benefit to usability professionals, significantly reducing the cost and enhancing the outcome of usability evaluations in the context of M-Commerce applications.