Tool-Supported User-Centred Prototyping of Mobile Applications

There is evidence that the user-centered development can increase the user-friendliness of resulting products and thus the distinguishing features compared to products of competitors. The user-centered development, however, requires comprehensive software and usability engineering skills to keep the process both cost-effective and time-effective. In this paper we cover that problem and provide insights in so-called user-centered prototyping (UCP) tools which support the production of prototypes as well as their evaluation with end-users. In particular, we introduce our UCP tool called MoPeDT (Pervasive Interface Development Toolkit for Mobile Phones) that provides assistance to interface developers of applications where mobile phones are used as interaction devices to a user’s everyday pervasive environment. Based on found tool features for UCP tools, a feature study is described between related tools and MoPeDT as well as a comparative user study between our tool and a traditional approach. A further focus of our paper is the tool-supported execution of empiric evaluations. Most tools either support empiric user evaluations in the field or real world simulations in a laboratory. We cover both types of empiric evaluations as well as the hybrid simulation as a novel kind of empiric evaluation.