This study used the DEMATEL method to analyze and compare the perspectives of mobile app developers and users on the quality characteristics defined in ISO/IEC 25010. The results showed that users regard security as the most important characteristic, while developers prioritize functional suitability, usability, and reliability. There were also differences in how each group viewed the relationships between characteristics. The study concludes that developers should consider user perspectives to better meet expectations and prevent wasted resources from misaligned priorities.

1. 1 INTRODUCTION
Problems and destructive power arising from low-
quality software are serious problems. For example,
in 1960, due to the undetected FORTRAN syntax
errors, the U.S. Venus probe spacecraft launching
failed. In Canada, the software error resulted in the
excessive radiation released by the radiotherapy unit
to cause the death of many cancer patients (Jones,
2011). These cases prove that software quality is a
serious and challenging issue. To address these
challenges, researches have suggested that software
quality management is the key factor to ensure
customer satisfaction and affirmation of project
delivery (Brown, 1991; Kan, 1991).
Mobile App is the software on smartphones,
tablets and other mobile devices. The original
application is only concerned with productivity and
information search; however, with an increasing
demand on everyday life quality, mobile App has
been extended to games, order tracking, and ticket
booking. According to ABI Research report, the
mobile App market output may reach 27 billion
USD in 2013. Despite many mobile Apps are
creative, the negligence of the key factor, namely
product quality, has led to usage problems and
negative reviews.
The purposes of this study are the following: (1)
to explore the mobile App software product quality
characteristics to clearly grasp the facts about
mobile App quality and provide mobile App
developers with a clear quality vision for planned
control; (2) to explore the cognitive differences
regarding quality characteristics from the
perspectives of developers and users. The
developers can find out whether their products meet
the quality expectation of the users, and carry out the
proper control and quality improvement plan under
limited resources.
2 ISO/IEC 25010
Weinberg (1991) suggested that quality
management is the value in the minds of some
people, and the quality is whether the needs are met.
Quality refers to the degree that products provided
by the producer meet the needs of the customers. By
applying this definition to the field of software
products, the software product quality can be
defined as a set of element that allows customers to
understand that software products meet or exceed
their needs, such as maintainability and portability.
Since the software product quality is the primary
consideration of customers, how to measure,
monitor and ensure the quality of software products
in the software development life cycle has become a
serious issue that the software industry must face.
Using DEMATEL to Analyze the Quality Characteristics of Mobile
Applications
Wen-Ming Han, Cheng-Hsien Hsu & Cheng-Yu Yeh
Department of Management Information System, Takming University of Science and Technology, Taipei
11451, Taiwan
ABSTRACT: This study applied DEMATEL to analyze mobile App quality characteristics from the perspec-
tives of developers and users. According to the results, users regard security as the most important quality
characteristic, while functional suitability, usability and reliability are regarded as the most important quality
characteristics by developers. The differences in viewpoints of users and developers may be the reason that
the current mobile APP development quality has not been fully accepted by users. Therefore, developers need
to rethink whether their quality priorities and considerations can meet user expectations to prevent waste of
resources and resource crowding out effects.
KEYWORD: Software Quality; ISO/IEC 25010; DEMATEL; Mobile Applications.

2. The prerequisite to quantization control of soft-
ware product quality to win customer satisfaction is
to be able to clearly describe and define the elements
of software product quality. Because the software
product quality factors have multi-faceted elements,
numerous studies have discussed software product
quality factors to define a complete software product
quality model. In other words, the unstructured
software can be objectively quantified and compared
in terms of software product quality across organiza-
tions.
ISO / IEC 25010 (2011) is the unit standard under
ISO / IEC 2501n (2014). ISO/IEC 25010 renames
the original internal and external quality point of
views of ISO/IEC 9126 into software quality and
system quality point of views. A total of 8 quality
characteristics and 31 quality sub-characteristics are
defined in ISO/IEC 25010. The 8 quality character-
istics are functional suitability, performance effi-
ciency, compatibility, usability, reliability, security,
maintainability and portability. Each quality charac-
teristic consists of quality sub-characteristics that are
in line with their own meanings. Figure 1 presents
this quality model.
Figure 1. ISO/IEC 25010.
3 DEMATEL
DEMATEL was developed by Battelle Memorial
Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. The DEMATEL
method was originally used to solve complex tangle
of issues (e.g., race, hunger, environmental and
energy issues) of the Science and Human Affairs
Program. Its initial application area is for the study
structural problems in the world, along with
complex analysis of world problems to develop
adaptation methods and review of existing research,
models and data about the world’s problems. Later,
DEMATEL has been widely used in various
research fields, such as agricultural development,
female employment, environmental analysis,
product surveys and medical practices, as it can
affect factorial relationship by plane geometry so as
to help understand the nature of the problem and
then seek characteristic solutions (Gabus and
Fontela, 1973; Fontela and Gabus, 1976). In general,
DEMATEL calculation includes five steps: (1) to
establish a direct relationship matrix; (2) to establish
an initialized direct relationship matrix; (3) to
calculate the normalized direct relation matrix; (4) to
calculate the total impact relationship matrix; (5) to
establish a causal relationship diagram
The drawing of the causal relationship diagram
needs to add up horizontal and vertical sum of the
total impact matrix generated by the fourth step.
Usually, R represents the sum of each column of the
total impact matrix, the degree of the criterion that
directly or indirectly affects other criteria; D repre-
sents the sum of each row of the total impact matrix,
which is the extent to which this factor is influenced
by other factors. Centrality (D + R) is on behalf of
the strength of relationship between factors. Being
closer to the right represents stronger strength
whereas it is weaker if closer to the left. Causality
(D – R) represents the significance of the factor,
which is the strength of influence or impact. When
(D – R) > 0, D is relatively more significant; (D – R)
< 0, then R is relatively more significant. In other
words, factors in the first quadrant (D – R is positive
and D + R is very large) represent the driving factors
to solve the core problems and thus should be the
priorities for treatment; factors in the second quad-
rant (D – R is positive and D + R is very small) are
other factors of independence and little influence.
Factors in the third quadrant (D – R is negative and
D + R is very small) represent other few factors that
are affected or affect others. Factors in the fourth
quadrant (D – R is negative and D + R is large) rep-
resent the core problems to be addressed immediate-
ly but not the direct improvement of the quality
characteristics. Figure 2 illustrates the management
implications of each quadrant of the causal relation-
ship diagram.
Figure 2. The Causal diagram.

3. 4 RESULTS
In this study, we designed the DEMATEL ques-
tionnaire based on the 8 quality characteristics of
ISO/IEC 25010. The pairwise comparison scale of
quality characteristics includes 0-no influence, 1-low
influence, 2-medium influence and 3-high influence,
the research questionnaire Cronbach α coefficient is
0.98, which is in line with the proposal by Wortzel
(1979) that “Cronbach α coefficient in the range
from 0.7 to 0.98 can be regarded as highly reliable”,
in addition the questionnaire content was reviewed
and modified by advisor professor and the associated
advisor professors to ensure Content Validity. Final-
ly, the overall recovery rate of the survey samples
was 53.18%.
4.1 User's perspective
Greater centrality (D+R) value represents that the
quality characteristic is relatively important.
According to Table 1, four quality characteristics are
above the average in overall centrality (28.807) in
the descending order of Functional Suitability,
Security, Usability and Reliability.
The symbol of causality (D-R) represents whether
the quality characteristics affects or is affected by
others. According to Table 1, four quality
characteristics are positive in D-R value
(Performance efficiency, Maintainability,
Compatibility and Security), and four quality
characteristics are negative in D-R in the descending
order of Functional Suitability, Usability, Reliability
and Portability.
Figure 3 illustrates the Causal diagram described
according to Table 1. The quality characteristics are
evenly distributed in the four quadrants suggesting
that Mobile APP users perceive that eight quality
characteristics are different. Therefore, developers
should consider the user perceptions of quality
characteristics so that the Mobile APP can be
interesting and win positive feedbacks.
Table 1. The direct and indirect effects of the Quality
Characteristics under user's perspective.
Quality
Characteristics
D R D+R D-R
Functional
Suitability
14.583 15.573 30.156 -0.990
Reliability 14.143 14.799 28.943 -0.656
Usability 14.301 15.144 29.445 -0.843
Performance
efficiency
14.011 13.764 27.775 0.246
Portability 14.072 14.186 28.258 -0.114
Maintainability 14.325 13.282 27.607 1.043
Compatibility 14.512 13.612 28.124 0.900
Security 15.282 14.868 30.150 0.414
Figure 3. The Causal diagram under user's perspective.
4.2 Developer's perspective
Greater centrality (D+R) value means that the
quality characteristic is relatively more important.
According to Table 2, three quality characteristics
are greater than the average centrality value (16.128)
in the descending order from Functional Suitability,
Usability and Reliability.
The symbol of causality (D-R) represents whether
quality characteristics affects or is affected by
others. According to Table 2, five quality
characteristics have positive D-R values (Functional
Suitability, Reliability, Usability, Performance
efficiency and Security), 3 quality characteristics
have negative D-R values in the descending order
from Portability, Maintainability, and Compatibility.
Figure 4 illustrates the Causal diagram described
according to Table 2, quality characteristics are
clearly unevenly distributed in the four quadrants, in
particular, there is no quality characteristic in the
fourth quadrant.
Table 2. The direct and indirect effects of the Quality
Characteristics under developer's perspective.
Quality
Characteristics
D R D+R D-R
Functional
Suitability
8.926 8.498 17.424 0.428
Reliability 8.810 7.969 16.779 0.841
Usability 8.770 8.346 17.116 0.424
Performance
efficiency
8.000 7.799 15.798 0.201
Portability 6.777 8.130 14.907 -1.353
Maintainability 7.424 8.648 16.072 -1.224
Compatibility 7.321 7.553 14.874 -0.233
Security 8.486 7.570 16.055 0.916

4. Figure 4. The Causal diagram under developer's perspective.
5 CONCLUSIONS
User is the final accepter of the quality. Many
developers failed by ignoring user experience,
therefore, how to consider the quality characteristics
perceived as important by users in the early product
development period is an important issue that cannot
be ignored because the Mobile APP quality control
activities dominated by developers are to make the
product quality acceptable to users.
From the perspective of D+R greater than
centrality, Functional Suitability, Usability and
Reliability are quality characteristics perceived as
important by both the developer and the user. From
the perspective of D-R below 0, Portability is the
only quality characteristic that the user and the
developer commonly agree. From the perspective of
D-R above 0, both the developer and the user regard
Performance efficiency and Security can affect other
quality characteristics.
Based on the results of this study, there are three
directions for future research and extended
discussion: (1) to combine ISO/IEC 25010 system /
software product quality architecture to support the
use of non-hierarchical structure software product
quality model; (2) to explore differences in the
quality assessment results arising from different data
collection methods to add the appropriate
information to check the practical skills to make it
more complete; (3) to analyze the Mobile APP
product user quality elements by case study to verify
the completeness of the proposed research method in
this study.
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