Usability evaluation and development of heuristics for second-screen applications

Abstract

This paper describes a methodological approach for the usability evaluation of a second-screen application, that is, the use of the same application in two devices simultaneously, one of them taking a more passive role acting as a second screen. In our case, the devices are a tablet and a smart TV, and the application is a sports news application that provides news and multimedia content. We perform the usability analysis of the application following some comprehensive taxonomies of usability and context-of-use attributes. We put the focus of the analysis on the interaction between the two devices because it is the most challenging part and is a new form of use that is becoming more common nowadays. After this analysis we generalize some usability heuristics that can be useful for assessing second-screen applications.