A Comparative Analysis for the Enhancement of Design of Local Cultural Mobile Applications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37134/jictie.vol4.9.2017Keywords:
local cultural design principles, mobile applications, usability, mlearningAbstract
Culturally appropriate design guidelines could support developers in designing good mobile applications for users. Many studies in developing countries have been conducted without considering the local cultural aspects of the mobile applications for the user interface design. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the usability of mobile applications for three local cultural applications in Malaysian universities to improve the design of mobile applications. The research approach of this article emphasizes the descriptive quantitative results from heuristic evaluation between academics and students in the use of three mobile apps. According to the findings, the academics’ preferences are Jawi, Songket, and Batik, in ascending order, while the students’ preferences are Songket, Jawi and Batik in ascending order. Consequently, both groups preferred Batik as it attains higher means in the heuristic evaluation. Due to the high ranking of means for all the design principles, this study provides new insights into the prospect of four cultural guidelines for local cultural mobile applications in addition to the general usability design guidelines.
Downloads
References
Abdullah, N., & Chandran, S. K. 2009, Aug 27. Cultural elements in a Malaysian English language textbook. Retrieved from: http://ddms.usim.edu.my/handle/123456789/713.
Alotaibi, M. B. 2013, April. Assessing the usability of university websites in Saudi Arabia: A heuristic evaluation approach. In Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG), 2013 Tenth International Conference, 138-142. Las Vegas, USA.
Ariffin, S. A., & Dyson, L. E. (2015). Culturally Appropriate Design of Mobile Learning Applications in the Malaysian
Context. Cross-Cultural Design Applications in Mobile Interaction, Education, Health, Transport and Cultural Heritage, 3-14.
Asiapac Editorial. (2010). Gateway to Malay culture. 5th Edn. Singapore: Asiapac Books.
Bertini, E., Gabrielli, S., and Kimani, S. (2006). Appropriating and assessing heuristics for mobile computing. Proceedings of the Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, 119-126. Venice, Italy.
Diah, N.M., Ismail, M., Hami, P.M.A., & Ahmad, S. (2011). Assisted Jawi-writing (AJaW) software for children. Open
Systems (ICOS), 2011 IEEE Conference, 322-26, Langkawi, Malaysia.
Herr, S., Baumgartner, N., & Gross, T. (2016). Evaluating Severity Rating Scales for Heuristic Evaluation. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3069-3075, New York, USA.
Seong, D. S. K. (2006). Usability guidelines for designing mobile learning portals. Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Mobile technology, applications & systems, 1-8. Bangkok, Thailand
Shaari, M.N.G. (2011). Wither the bumiputera identity of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). Kajian Malaysia (Malaysia Study), 29(2): 67-89.
Rainger, P. (2005). Accessibility and mobile learning. Mobile learning: A handbook for educators and trainers, 57-69. Oxon, UK: Routledge.
Young, P. A. 2008. Integrating culture in the design of ICTs. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(1): 6-17.
Zaibon, S. B., and Shiratuddin, N. (2010), April. Heuristics evaluation strategy for mobile game-based learning. Wireless, Mobile and Ubiquitous Technologies in Education (WMUTE), 2010 6th IEEE International Conference, 127-31. Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
