AJP Reports

This article considers the visual appearance of a virtual agent designed to take over the driving task in a highly automated car, to answer the question of which visual appearance is appropriate for a virtual agent in a driving role. The authors first selected five models of visual appearance thanks to a picture sorting procedure (N = 19). Then, they conducted a survey-based study (N = 146) using scales of trust, anthropomorphism, and likability to assess the appropriateness of those five models from an early-prototyping perspective. They found that human and mechanical-human models were more trusted than other selected models in the context of highly automated cars. Instead, animal and mechanical-animal ones appeared to be less suited to the role of a driving assistant. Learnings from the methodology are discussed, and suggestions for further research are proposed.

This study determined the factors that influenced the usability of a mobile-based intelligent agent called “AskRed.” The design-related factors were evaluated in terms of performance, accuracy, responsiveness, aesthetics, and completeness. The usability of the software was determined in terms of satisfaction and intention to re-use the software. The software received favorable ratings from the students. Experts' software evaluation recommended strengthening the design of the intelligent agent in terms of security, performance, completeness, and ease-of-use. Multiple regression analyses showed that performance and completeness influenced satisfaction and intention to re-use. Aesthetics and responsiveness influenced satisfaction but not intention to re-use. Responsiveness had a negative impact on satisfaction. The predictive powers of the regression equations are 58% and 73%. This study provided empirical evidence on the predictors of usability of an intelligent agent used in a university setting.

A substantial amount of research has been conducted to investigate the effects of physical and cognitive changes on smartphone task performance. Prior research examined the effects of age difference and smartphone visual search tasks. The results confirmed the effects of age on task performance. Several surprising findings emerged during the processing of the data. Aside from task performance, differences in demographic characteristics and smartphone usage habits were found between elderly and other age groups. After reviewing literature, the authors found that there has not been any research on how demographic characteristics or usage behaviors may be related to smartphone task performance. The objectives of this present study are to examine how demographic characteristics correlated to smartphone task performance and to compare general and senior users. The results showed differences between general and senior users in term of demographic characteristics and smartphone usage behaviors. The analysis found that both demographic factors and usage behavior correlated with task performance.

Visual aesthetics is a success criterion for mobile apps. Despite considerable research on graphical user interface (GUI) assessments, there is a lack of studies investigating the reliability and validity of scale types on visual aesthetics as a unidimensional construct. In this study, 208 subjects were divided into four groups, each using a different rating scale and the VisAWI-S questionnaire as the golden standard, to assess the visual aesthetics of nine mobile GUIs. As a result, all scales showed excellent inter-rater reliability and good agreement. Seven-point scales resulted in slightly higher intra-rater reliability than those with five points, but agreement was lower using five-point Likert scales. All scales have shown to be valid compared with VisAWI-S and presented strong correlations pairwise. Results indicate that any of these scales are suitable to assess mobile GUI visual aesthetics reliably and validly as long as response quality is analyzed. This work supports the adoption of single-item questionnaires reducing effort and time, especially in large-scale assessment designs.

This research investigated the relationship between smartphone addiction (SA) and autism quotient, considering the indirect effect of theory of mind (ToM). This research successfully recruited 399 smartphone users to complete self-reported measures for SA, ToM, and autism quotient. Initial results with Pearson's correlation revealed a significant negative relationship between excessive smartphone use and ToM. A significant negative correlation was observed between ToM and the gauged autism quotient. However, the measured SA did not correlate significantly with the autism quotient. From the path analysis, the measured SA did not predict autism quotient and ToM significantly, whereas the measured ToM significantly predicted autism quotient. The negative relationship supports that individuals with established ToM are less likely to develop characteristics of autism. The estimated indirect effect was not significant, implying that ToM did not mediate the direct effect of SA on autism quotient. Implications and limitations are further discussed in this manuscript.

Location-aware computing systems implementation has the challenge of maintaining its consistency due to frequent disconnections in the mobile environment. Many other exciting issues associated with this domain provide a fertile ground for many mobile database researchers to tackle. This work contributes by taking up-to-date literature on current location-aware mobile data management practices. The paper includes taxonomy for caching, map-matching, and location privacy protection with spatial-temporal queries, unlike other review papers, which only address a specific aspect of location-dependent data management. First, an in-depth analysis of state-of-the-art and classified literature is presented, taking into account the domain of application models and approaches for evaluation. Secondly, it provides a theoretical and analytical investigation of location-conscious computing approaches available in the literature, examining the merit and demerit of each method and the evolving processes between them. Finally, the paper highlighted the outstanding opportunities for future research directions.

This study aims to identify the factors that impact the perception of an individual to adopt mobile banking. The study employed UTAUT 2 model which conceptualises eight dimensions which are performance expectancy, social influence, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, facilitating conditions, habit, price value with trust as an additional dimension. Primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire from 252 users of mobile banking in the city of New Delhi, India. Reliability and validity of the proposed model have been tested. The result of structural modeling revealed habit as the most important factor to influence the behavioural intention of the user followed by facilitating conditions, trust, hedonic motivation, and social influence, in that order. To boost the adoption of mobile banking services, service providers should focus on the identified dimensions in order of their importance.

The present study investigates the moderating role of age on the differences in smartphone usage patterns by gender. Therefore, a literature review is first made to verify the differences in smartphone usage patterns by gender, as well as the role of age in the relationship between gender and smartphone usage patterns. Based on these reviews, the moderating effects of age are hypothesized in the relationship between gender and smartphone usage patterns. The empirical study includes smartphone usage data from 9,566 individuals which reflected the actual use of smartphones. The relevant theoretical and practical implications are presented based on the study results.

Education for all has been a fundamental ideology behind the prosperity and development of a nation. The proposed system based on IoT aims to improve the quality of education and interaction for the visually challenged through object classification, learning, and digital library. This paper introduces a deep learning enabled percussive methodology for interaction of the blind. The methodology proposed in this work takes recorded audio as input and performs classification based on certain characteristics in order to determine a knock pattern. A proof-of-concept wearable device is introduced allowing visually challenged persons to passively read braille by stimulation on the skin of the forearm. A web application is designed that enables any ebook to be streamed via this web application to the wearable device. An Android application is presented that serves as an application to assist in daily life activities. The proposed system is tested on two different categories of subjects consisting of visually impaired and blindfolded people.

The cumulative growth of the internet, mobile technology, and phenomenal communicative interface have created a whole new experience for mobile applications. Food companies have leveraged this innovation to provide their customers with an alternate channel to order food online. This study aims to identify and empirically examine the determinants of consumers' trust in mobile food delivery applications (MFDAs) and to measure the impact of consumers' trust on their intention to purchase. The data was collected from 372 Indian customers who have used MFDAs. The results are based on structural equation modelling and support the significance of perceived ease of use, propensity to trust, and online reviews in building consumers' trust in MFDAs. Additionally, consumers' trust was found to positively and significantly impact consumers' intention to make online purchases. This study will assist service providers and researchers working in areas related to mobile food delivery applications.

Although mobile applications are increasingly being used as a viable option for improving individuals' psychological health, there is a lack of research in this area. This qualitative study analysed user experiences of mobile mental health applications (MHapps) among the English-speaking general population of 462 participants using the critical incident technique. The authors employed an online questionnaire method to gather responses. The analysis yielded three main domains: type of MHapp, impact on life, and recommendations. Participants use MHapps to calm down, do tasks, track, and connect with others or chat-bots for specific disorders. This study outlines the specific cognitive, emotional, and behavioural changes in participants' lives resulting from the mobile interventions. The results confirm and broaden the existing theoretical knowledge and recommendations for MHapps development in terms of usability, accessibility, and content. Further confirmatory studies are needed to validate the results for specialized MHapps using different analysis and data gathering techniques.

With the rise of live streaming, many internet companies began to carry out the live streaming business, and this system was applied in various fields. Due to the emergence of e-commerce live streaming in recent years, the studies on it are not comprehensive. And for the construction of live streaming of mobile e-commerce, it is rarely considered from the perspective of users' hedonic needs. This study combined with the social presence theory to build a conceptual model explored the impact of this system on users' intention to adopt from the perspective of enjoyment feeling. The results show visual scene positively affects users' perceived enjoyment, visual scene and communication function have positive effect on social presence, social presence has positive effect on perceived enjoyment, and perceived enjoyment positively affects users' adoption intention. Finally, the authors provide practical suggestions and strategies for platform operators and sellers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the design principles to develop mobile applications for illiterate and semi-literate people and to design, develop, and evaluate a mobile application for illiterate and semi-literate people in Bangladesh using the revealed design principles and following a design science research approach. The authors first conducted a requirement elicitation study to reveal a set of design principals to make the user interface (UI) intuitive for illiterate and semi-literate people. Then, a mobile application (Chakuri-Bazaar) was developed following these design principals. Finally, the application was evaluated with 40 illiterate and semi-literate people through a field study. As outcome, a set of design principles was revealed for designing usable mobile application for illiterate and semi-literate people. The findings of the evaluation study suggest that the application was effective, efficient, and the users were satisfied in terms of its ease of use, ease of learning, willingness to use it in future, and willingness to recommend it to others.

Participants increasingly use mobile devices, especially smartphones, to fill out online questionnaires. However, standard questionnaire templates are often not optimized for presentation on smartphones, raising the question of whether an unfavorable layout may influence the survey results. In this study, interaction with questionnaires on different devices was investigated regarding processing time, data quality, and user experience of the questionnaire itself. Several standard and newly developed questionnaire layout templates were evaluated by means of an online study (N=301). Results show that processing times are higher on smartphones compared to desktop computers. However, there were no differences regarding data quality. The comparison of different mobile layouts among smartphone users revealed effects on processing time and user experience. Design recommendations are derived.

The purpose of this article was to examine best practices for designing inquiry-based contextual instructional content and determining the pedagogical uses and impacts of communities of practice for supporting mobile learning activities. In this convergent parallel mixed methods case study, mobile learning experiences were accessed by physicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals at medical organizations across Ontario. Impact was measured by the learning outcomes and experiences of study participants. Findings highlighted the effectiveness of context-specific, situated learning content for application of learned skills, integration of new knowledge, and identification of best practices. Synchronous discussion forums were examined for collaboration and communication during mobile learning, and asynchronous forums were ideal for post-learning collaboration, problem-solving and resource sharing.