Abstract
Websites like those for outdoor recreation and tourism address dynamic design problems and mobile connectivity concerns that need to be investigated. Re-searchers developed a mobile device prototype to obtain a deeper understanding of user’s preferences and desires for a mobile device for outdoor recreation.
Introduction
Mobile device and apps usage have continued to grow, and the number of adults owning smartphones has risen from 35% to 56% in just two years. The most common outdoor activities were biking, cycling, fishing, camping, hiking, etc. With the widespread and steady interest in outdoor recreation, the need to provide information about recreation and tourism through mobile devices increased.
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To enhance visitor experiences and build public contact, the goal was building a mobile application that would meet the increasing demands and interactivity needs of the public. In order to learn what types of features and knowledge users required for this mobile recreation application, we first conducted the following tests:
- Meta-review of current parks and mobile recreational applications
- Usability-based focusing group
- Surveys for mobile mockup designs
Evaluation Scope, Metrics and Strategies
The main goal of this research was to identify usability issues with the mobile prototype and to establish best practices for the design of mobile user interface, because the usability always refers to how simply and easily user can accomplish a specific task with some tool to achieve certain goals. To have all that features to assure that we implemented all standards the best choose is to follow the ISO standards.
The good usability consists of three components: satisfaction, efficiency and effectiveness. In order to follow testing, we always must answer those questions:
- What users like and dislike about the flow of mobile prototype?
- What elements are hard for users to understand?
- What aspects need to be gained in this process?
Procedure
The research team occupied a park site and made up a data collection station composed of a table, tablet and mobile device mock-up and tracking software, video camera to monitor tablet use, and umbrella to darken the screen in a sunny, outdoor environment for ease of viewing. Visitors were selected by walking around the park site and calling volunteers, who would earn $25 for the 30-minute sessions.
Usability Results
Participants performed nine task situations using the mobile prototype. The tasks centered on searching for information using the application, such as directions to the park, weather reports, lake events and where to leave feedback. Participants were also asked whether they should use the mobile app and for what reasons. Most of them were able to finish 4 tasks fully successfully, 2 of the tasks partially successful and 3 of the tasks encountered as difficult.
In general, all the participants gave positive feedback and were interested in using mobile app in future. Also, they provide some suggestions how to improve and what they would like to add in the content of that mobile app.
Best Practices Based on Observations and Results
Provided results based on those experimental sessions of usability testing for mobile prototype should include and have:
- Clear navigation at the bottom of the screen
- Minimal scrolling
- Larger clickable areas for clickable features
- Less clicks to reach desired information
- Accurate labels and headers
- Appropriate space between buttons for easy click
Also, this outdoor usability testing provided some additional, unique findings related to outdoor recreation and tourism apps such as:
- Many outdoor locations for recreations have very weak or no wireless signal
- Options for access weather are not necessary
- Environment conditions should consider for choosing good font size and color contrast in order to increase readability
- Separate apps should be developed for different devices (tablet/mobile)
Conclusion
In conclusion, all results for mobile testing demonstrated best practice user interface design recommendations that are especially relevant to mobile recreation applications requiring access to a large amount of data and diverse audience in outdoor settings. The use of multiple methods in usability testing is unusual but highly recommended. Specifically, in contrast to single-method tests, the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods applied to the participants increases the validity of the findings and results were better.
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