Background: Mobile apps are fundamental tools in today’s society for practical and social endeavors. However, these technologies are often not usable for older users. Given the increased use of mobile apps by this group of users and the impact that certain services may have on their quality of life, such as mobile health, personal finance, or online administrative procedures, a clear set of guidelines for mobile app designers is needed. Existing recommendations for older adults focus on investigations with certain groups of older adults or have not been extracted from experimental results. Objective: In this research work, we systematically reviewed the scientific literature that provided recommendations for the design of mobile apps based on usability testing with older adults and organized such recommendations into a meaningful set of design guidelines. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review of journal and conference articles from 2010 to 2021. We included articles that carried out usability tests with populations aged >60 years and presented transferable guidelines on mobile software design, resulting in a final set of 40 articles. We then carried out a thematic analysis with 3 rounds of analysis to provide meaning to an otherwise diverse set of recommendations. At this stage, we discarded recommendations that were made by just 1 article, were based on a specific mobile app and were therefore nontransferrable, were based on other authors’ literature (as opposed to recommendations based on the results of usability tests), or were not sufficiently argued. With the remaining recommendations, we identified commonalities, wrote a faithful statement for each guideline, used a common language for the entire set, and organized the guidelines into categories, thereby giving shape to an otherwise diverse set of recommendations. Results: Among the 27 resulting guidelines, the rules Simplify and Increase the size and distance between interactive controls were transversal and of the greatest significance. The rest of the guidelines were divided into 5 categories (Help & Training, Navigation, Visual Design, Cognitive Load, and Interaction) and consequent subcategories in Visual Design (Layout, Icons, and Appearance) and Interaction (Input and Output). The recommendations were structured, explained in detail, and illustrated with applied examples extracted from the selected studies, where appropriate. We discussed the design implications of applying these guidelines, contextualized with relevant studies. We also discussed the limitations of the approach followed, stressing the need for further experimentation to gain a better understanding of how older adults use mobile apps and how to better design such apps with these users in mind. Conclusions: The compiled guidelines support the design of mobile apps that cater to the needs of older adults because they are based on the results of actual usability tests with users aged >60 years.

This tutorial examines the relationship between usability and the user interface and discusses how the usability process follows a design-evaluate-redesign cycle. It also discusses some management issues an organization must face when applying usability techniques.

The development of mobile apps during the last decade has had a significant increase in its share of the software market. While there are specific characteristics that separate it from traditional software development, there is a lack of guidance on issues encountered during the mobile software development process. With the aim of defining a mobile application development framework that considers the specific characteristics of developing mobile apps, we started by carrying out a systematic mapping study of the software development process for mobile applications, then we administered a survey and completed a qualitative study with industry experts. These studies allowed us to identify the main trends in the software process for mobile apps, and to uncover the main challenges for app development. We have organized the findings in a framework that integrates the specific challenges of mobile development, which we call Mobile Ilities, with software development activities that are linked through an agile process. The results of early tests carried out with computer science students are encouraging. Our proposal has served as a guide for novice developers throughout the process of creating a final product, combining the existing knowledge of developers about Scrum with the specific characteristics of mobile development, and providing mechanisms to link these characteristics with the elements of the development process.

Agile development processes are increasing their consideration of usability by integrating various user-centered design techniques throughout development. One such technique is Personas, which proposes the creation of fictitious users with real preferences to drive application design. Since applying this technique conflicts with the time constraints of agile development, Personas has been adapted over the years. Our objective is to determine the adoption level and type of integration, as well as to propose improvements to the Personas technique for agile development. A systematic mapping study was performed, retrieving 28 articles grouped by agile methodology type. We found some common integration strategies regardless of the specific agile approach, along with some frequent problems, mainly related to Persona modelling and context representation. Based on these limitations, we propose an adaptation to the technique in order to reduce the creation time for a preliminary persona. The number of publications dealing with Personas and agile development is increasing, which reveals a growing interest in the application of this technique to develop usable agile software.