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The advent of mobile computing brings, together with advantages and exciting
new opportunities, some novel challenges, among which mobile usability is a
prominent one. Ensuring usability is made difficult by the presence of non-conventional
aspects like: mobility, device limits, and changing contexts, which are
rather peculiar of the mobile setting and that require some non-conventional
and/or new knowledge to be addressed. It is necessary, in fact, to see if the tools
at disposal of the interaction designer are still appropriate and, where not adequate,
apply some refinements. Usability principles represent the basic knowledge
of the interaction designer and are the foundation for usability evaluation
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methods, therefore, in this paper, we start addressing the problem by proposing
a review of standard usability principles. We selected a wide set of commonly
accepted principles and went over them to see how they apply in mobile computing.
In this paper, we report on this activity, pointing out new requirements
and interesting findings. The inquiry is also supported by a description of limits
and opportunities posed by mobile devices and a short review of appropriate
and new usability evaluation methods.
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