Usability Assessments of Mobile Applications as a Function of Geographic Location

Abstract

Researchers recently demonstrated that subjective usability assessments of common products do not vary across geographic locations. That study did not directly address mobile applications, which are some of the most ubiquitous and geographically diverse systems in use in the United States today. To address this shortcoming, this article examined whether or not geographic location impacts the perceived usability of mobile applications by having 2,590 participants from different regions of the United States rate the usability of several mobile applications using the System Usability Scale. There was a lack of evidence to support statistically significant differences in usability scores across geographic locations for 95% of the mobile applications evaluated. This suggests that system usability assessments for mobile products do not differ across US locations. These findings further reinforce the idea that participants from any locale can be recruited for usability tests as long as all other critical demographic criteria are met.