Spreadsheets on the Move: An Evaluation of Mobile Spreadsheets
📝 Abstract
The power of mobile devices has increased dramatically in the last few years. These devices are becoming more sophisticated allowing users to accomplish a wide variety of tasks while on the move. The increasingly mobile nature of business has meant that more users will need access to spreadsheets while away from their desktop and laptop computers. Existing mobile applications suffer from a number of usability issues that make using spreadsheets in this way more difficult. This work represents the first evaluation of mobile spreadsheet applications. Through a pilot survey the needs and experiences of experienced spreadsheet users was examined. The range of spreadsheet apps available for the iOS platform was also evaluated in light of these users’ needs.
💡 Analysis
The power of mobile devices has increased dramatically in the last few years. These devices are becoming more sophisticated allowing users to accomplish a wide variety of tasks while on the move. The increasingly mobile nature of business has meant that more users will need access to spreadsheets while away from their desktop and laptop computers. Existing mobile applications suffer from a number of usability issues that make using spreadsheets in this way more difficult. This work represents the first evaluation of mobile spreadsheet applications. Through a pilot survey the needs and experiences of experienced spreadsheet users was examined. The range of spreadsheet apps available for the iOS platform was also evaluated in light of these users’ needs.
📄 Content
Spreadsheets on the Move: An Evaluation of Mobile Spreadsheets
Derek Flood1, Rachel Harrison1, Kevin Mc Daid2 1Oxford Brookes University, [derek.flood, rachel.harrison]@brookes.ac.uk 2Dundalk Institute of Technology, kevin.mcdaid@dkit.ie
ABSTRACT The power of mobile devices has increased dramatically in the last few years. These devices are becoming more sophisticated allowing users to accomplish a wide variety of tasks while on the move. The increasingly mobile nature of business has meant that more users will need access to spreadsheets while away from their desktop and laptop computers. Existing mobile applications suffer from a number of usability issues that make using spreadsheets in this way more difficult. This work represents the first evaluation of mobile spreadsheet applications. Through a pilot survey the needs and experiences of experienced spreadsheet users was examined. The range of spreadsheet apps available for the iOS platform was also evaluated in light of these users’ needs.
1 INTRODUCTION
Advances in technology have enabled mobile devices to allow users to accomplish a wide variety of
tasks while away from traditional computing equipment (e.g. desktop or laptop computers).
Traditional desktop applications are also now being ported to mobile devices, allowing users to do
their computing while on the move.
One such application is the spreadsheet. With modern smart phones such as the iPhone from Apple,
and the Curve from BlackBerry, users can now access their spreadsheets from anywhere. However,
the small nature of these devices, required for portability has introduced a number of limitations that
have caused severe usability problems. Section 2 outlines some of these issues and outlines how these
issues impact upon the usability of mobile spreadsheet applications.
This paper is the first work to examine the needs of experienced spreadsheet users for accessing
spreadsheets while away from traditional computing devices. By better understanding the needs of
these users, more effective mobile spreadsheet applications can be developed that not only meet the
needs of these users but also provide a more pleasing user experience.
A pilot survey has been conducted with experienced spreadsheet users. This survey was designed to
assess not just the needs of these users but also their previous experience with mobile spreadsheets. In
light of the needs of these users, existing spreadsheet applications available on the Apple iOS
platform were evaluated. The research methodology employed during this study can be found in
Section 3.
The results of this study have shown that there is a need for access to spreadsheets on mobile devices.
Existing applications however, suffer from a number of issues that make them difficult to use and
therefore provide a poor overall user experience. The full results of this study can be found in Section
4, while Section 5 outlines the lessons that have been learned during the study.
Section 6 outlines some threats to the validity of this work. The study presented here was conducted
with a small number of participants which will limit the generalisability of these results. In addition to
this only experienced spreadsheet users were targeted for the study. In the future a more extensive
study will be conducted with all types of spreadsheet users.
In addition to this further studies will be conducted examining the usability of mobile spreadsheet
applications. This study will allow for a deeper understanding of the usability issues associated with
these applications. This study is outlined in Section 7 while Section 8 concludes this paper.
2 RELATED WORK
The rapid progression of technology has led to an increase in the number of mobile applications
available. Although these applications offer a number of advantages in terms of portability and
convenience they do so at the cost of usability. Zhang and Adipat (2005) have highlighted a number
of issues that affect the usability of mobile applications:
•
Mobile Context: When considering mobile applications the user is not tied to a single
location. This will also include interaction with nearby people, objects and environmental
elements which may distract a user’s attention.
•
Connectivity: With mobile devices connectivity is often slow and unreliable and therefore
will impact the performance of mobile applications which utilise these features.
•
Small Screen Size & Different Display Resolution: In order to provide portability mobile
devices contain very limited screen size meaning that the amount of information that can be
displayed is drastically reduced.
•
Limited Processing Capability and Power: In order to provide portability, mobile devices
often contain less processing capability and power. This has the effect of limiting the types of
applications that are suitable for mobile devices.
•
Data Entry Methods: The input methods available for mobile dev
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