Human Computer Interaction

Exercise

For the main project assessment, you will need to come up with an idea of a proposed mobile application. There are thousands of apps that already exist, so coming up with a new idea for an application maybe difficult. One way around this is to propose amendments, changes or improvements to existing apps. One common technique to determine shortcomings of existing apps is to observe or analyze what issues users are facing with these apps. Typically this can be judged from the reviews or comments that users make on these apps.

As part of this homework question, you need to do the following:

Choose any two mobile apps from either iTunes or Google Play, such that the app has at least more than 10 textual reviews. Access the reviews section of the app and randomly pick any 10 reviews that describe issues, shortcomings or flaws in the app. After this analyze the 10 reviews and try to create a taxonomy or classification of the reviews (i.e. generalize the main issues and group similar reviews together). Possible categories could be general such as: setup issues (from installation leading up to signup), expensive for what its worth, Poor Usability, Poor UX or more specific such as: poor integration with social media, limited customization or profiling for the user or lack of advanced features.

Remember this is a subjective process so there is no right answer, it is up to you how you wish to classify the reviews and issues with the apps. By generalizing the reviews into categories you can come up with suggestions and solutions on how to improve the app design. In conclusion, present a table for each app separately (so two tables) with the 10 reviews.