Usability Testing Methods for Mobile Learning Applications

"The search for common ground in a divided market" is how Ben Feigin (2013) describes mobile application development. The reach of mobile devices has grown exponentially in the past decade, with it grew the requirement and subsequently the need of developing mobile applications. As mobile phones have become popular in the society and many people can afford the cost, the demand of mobility is extended to teaching and learning purposes says Leung (2003). To cope with frequent development of Mobile Learning Applications, engineers need a reusable and cost-effective environment for testing mobile applications. In the fleet of mobile applications being developed everyday it is imperative that an application is of high usability to the user otherwise the rate of acceptance for the application falls. To make sure of its acceptance it needs to be ensured that is application is of high usability for the end user. It necessitates that; the application needs to be tested for usability thoroughly. Usability testing is a type of testing done from an end-user's perspective to determine if the system is easily usable. It refers to evaluating the ease with which users can learn to use a product. But, usability techniques to be carried out are large in numbers, so it becomes difficult to study all of them and then to decide the most appropriate one to be used. It is therefore required that an extensive study for the identification of the most suitable and relevant usability testing method is carried out. This paper aims to identify the most preferred usability testing method which is recommended by software practitioners and testers for testing a Mobile Learning Application (m-LA). To find out the most preferred testing method evidence based approach is used, where the evidences of usability testing methods being used by researchers are congregated through systematic literature review.