Analytic Hierarchy Process Model for Evaluation of Mobile Health Applications
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Date
2019-07
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Abstract
Assessing the usability of mHealth apps is still a herculean task among software usability
researchers/engineers as evaluating the usability attributes of these apps require substantial
efforts from a wide range of knowledge domains and prospective users. Most usability models
possess numerous attributes that can be adequately used to assess these apps but current
usability techniques cannot effectively rank numerous qualitative and quantitative usability
attributes simultaneously. Hence, the main objective of this work is to rank and prioritize the
usability attributes embedded in a model for mobile app evaluation purposes. The model was
designed hierarchically based on People at the Center of Mobile Application Development
(PACMAD) MODEL and the Integrated Measurement Model (IMM). Attributes considered
include efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction, learnability, operability, user interface aesthetics
and universality. They were ranked using their respective priority weights based on the
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Pairwise comparison matrix was formulated based on
decision makers’ judgements that were aggregated and normalized. Consistency of decision
makers’ judgements was obtained using Saaty’s Eigen value and Eigen vector approach as a
result of their simplicity and accuracy. Results of evaluation showed that efficiency and
effectiveness had the highest priorities with 30% and 27% while satisfaction and user interface
aesthetics had the lowest ranks with 6% and 5% respectively. Overall AHP group consensus
results was 68%. In conclusion, it was established that the mathematical technique used is a
powerful yet simple tool that has the ability to evaluate both the quantitative and qualitative
usability attributes simultaneously. The work presented the assessment of a unified framework
that combined the judgements from multiple levels of mHealth apps usability evaluation
process. It is recommended that further studies extend the usability model used by increasing
the number of usability attributes and for the evaluation to be done using other Multi-criteria
Decision Making (MCDM) approaches and for the results obtained to be compared so as to be
able to determine the differences or relationships between other MCDM techniques on
usability models.
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Keywords
Analytic hierarchy process, Mobile health applications, Multi-criteria decision making, Usability models