Mobile apps are evolving rapidly making ubiquitous information, accessible anytime and anywhere across diverse devices. This has meant an increased need for ensuring the usability of the apps on the mobile and not just the functionality of the apps. Some of the common factors that influence usability of mobile software are:

1. Factors that influence the quality of usability in mobile software!
Mobile apps are evolving rapidly making ubiquitous information, accessible anytime and anywhere across
diverse devices. This has meant an increased need for ensuring the usability of the apps on the mobile
and not just the functionality of the apps. Some of the common factors that influence usability of mobile
software are:
Adopting PC approaches directly for mobile software
Most programmers who work on mobile software were trained to develop software for the desktop
environment. There are many standardized practices in such a development environment and
programmers with relatively low usability knowledge / experience can borrow standard interfaces and
libraries and create usable programs.
In the case of mobile software things have not evolved as much. Moreover, for each mobile platform,
there are new set of standards, technology used is different, look and operations are also different
between platforms. This adds to the complexity of mobile software while adopting desktop approaches to
developing them.
Direct porting of software between different mobile and embedded platforms
It is necessary to make the mobile software support diverse mobile platforms. Just look at the
complexities here, different platforms are technologically different, and the programs have to be re-
developed for each of them. Interface also needs to take into account the architecture and phone models.
This means the programming community needs to acquire a wide range of knowledge, which is not
common place. This effectively affects the usability for same programs being migrated between platforms.
Market environment of software industry is fast paced, making more and more releases in the
shortest possible time
Faster time to market is the motto of most software organizations and rightly so. However, it needs to be
faster and better and not just faster. Most often than not, it is only the functionality that is given
importance and the non-functional items are given a miss in the quest to release software faster to
market. It is the non-functional needs like usability that assumes importance when it comes to mobile
software and this has to be clearly thought-out as a part of the software release.
Lack of trained specialists in mobile software
Usability as a body of knowledge itself hasn’t gained acceptance in the IT software development industry.
This is more so when it comes to mobile software, for things are evolving only now. There is not a
common body of knowledge that sufficiently addresses the interface development needs of desktop,
mobile and embedded applications. Lack of this body of knowledge means lack of trained specialists in
mobile software.
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