understanding mobile application usage

Understanding Mobile Application Usage

Dr. Matthias Böhmer DFKI GmbH!IBM Developer Days 2013Zürich, Switzerland!

Evolution

Today - Hardware changed- Connectivity improved- App stores arose

Growth of Mobile Ecosystem1.1.3 The Age of Application Stores 7

0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000 800,000 900,000

1,000,000

Apple AppStore Google Play Market

Figure 1.3: Number of applications available per application stores between June 2008 toJune 2013.14

providers to develop, market and distribute their applications [7], and for end-userssuch platforms provide a convenient way to access applications since the end-usersdo not have to handle any technical details [124]. While the customization of aphone’s look and feel and audio profiles was a very important feature of first mo-bile phones [109], being able to also customize phone’s functionality in terms ofapplications also became increasingly important [17]. As such, the most importantaspect of application stores that we will focus on in this work is that the end-userherself is able to customize the functionality of her own device. Due to the varietyof services available on application stores, e.g. recreational applications and spir-itual applications [53], mobile phones were integrated even deeper into people’slives [17].

Resulting from the popularity of mobile application stores, the number of availableapplications is steadily increasing. At time of writing this thesis there were morethan 775,000 applications available for Apple’s iPhone and more than 900,000 ap-plications for the Android platform.15 One can expect these numbers to be outdatedsoon, and therefore Figure 1.3 shows the recent growth trend of mobile applica-tions stores, based on which a further increase can be anticipated. The number ofapplication downloads, i.e., the number of times people installed applications on14Data source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS) and http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Google_Play, data interpolated, last accessed on 28.06.2013.15Wikipedia: List of mobile software distribution platforms. http://is.gd/pzjWb6, last accessed on

07.06.2013.

Available Applications

- Number of available mobile apps is increasing- Number of app downloads is growing rapidly- Daily time spent with apps also increases

Challenges for Users

Launching HousekeepingDiscovering Multitasking

Launching

Housekeeping

Discovering

Multitasking

How do people utilize the apps they have installed?

App Lifecycle

being used

not being used

closeopen

install uninstall

update

Logging app usage AppSensor: Tracing App Usage

which app

how long

Data from Deployment

- 4,125 users (from various countries)- 22,626 apps (from 20 categories)- 4.92 million data points (launches)- 127 days (approx. 4 month of data)

During Course of a Day

- App usage correlates with circadian circle- Type of apps used changes during the day

25,000

50,000

75,000

100,000

125,000

150,000

175,000

200,000

Application Chains

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probability of transitions

Application Chains

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Support for App Launching

- Adaptive launcher menu- Support visual search for apps- Presenting 5 icons for next app

- Implements different models- Most frequently used apps - Most recently used apps - Sequentially used apps- Locally most used apps - Context-aware prediction model

- Android app AppKicker

Launching

Housekeeping

Discovering

Multitasking

How do people organize applications on their phones?

Study method

Quantitative data, e.g.- number of apps- number of folders- number of icons on page- x/y position of icons

Qualitative data- participants‘ experience levels- concepts of icon arrangement- participants labeled with

concepts„most used apps first page, groups of apps 2nd space, then games“

„most-used items should be on the first page, otherwise I try to group items (e.g., news outlets together)“

Screenshot Study

grounded theory

majority rule

template matching

- 132 participants- 1,486 screenshots

Usage-based icon arrangement

Relatedness-based icon arrangement

Usability-based icon arrangement

Aesthetics-based icon arrangement

External concepts for icon arrangement

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5 Concepts for Arranging Icons4.3.2 Results of Screenshot Study 117

(a) Usage-based (b) Relatedness-based (c) Usability-based (d) Aesthetic-based

Figure 4.5: Example screenshots of participants who used certain concepts for arrangingtheir icons: (a) one participant who reports to “put the most frequently used applicationson the first screen”; (b) a user with five folders on his first page who tries “to group[applications] by what they do or what I use them for”; (c) a participant who says hewould “keep third row available for easy swiping to the next page”; (d) a participant whohas created a checkerboard pattern: “most icons are blue, so on my first page of icons italternates between blue and brown and I try to keep that consistency throughout”.

Some people also explicitly stated that they have no concept for arrangingtheir icons. Yet, since every icon arrangement has an inherent order, it isunclear how this order emerged. It is most likely that people who do nothave any explicit concept also follow an external concept, e.g. just leave thearrangement as it was preinstalled or add the icons of new installed applica-tions to the first free spot in the menu.

Hybrid Concepts and Co-Occurrence. It is worth mentioning that these fiveconcepts are not mutually exclusive, i.e. a user may apply two or more conceptsin parallel. For further analysis, all participants have been categorized based onthe five concepts we found. To reduce the subjectiveness of the categorization, thelabeling has been done by three different analysts whose results have been mergedby the principle of majority rule. For this reason we can take their merged clas-sification as ground truth. We have been able to partially cross-validate people’stextual description given in their self-reports with the screenshots they provided:For people who said that they group by similarity, we found folders of applications,and those who claimed to exploit icons’ colors have also been proven to be right;for instance the participant who said that “most icons are blue, so on my first pageof icons it alternates between blue and brown and I try to keep that consistencythroughout” is shown in Figure 4.5(d) — while the color blue is recognizable, thecolor brown is rather fuzzy. We had to trust participants’ self-reporting feedback

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5 Concepts for Arranging Icons4.3.2 Results of Screenshot Study 117

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5 Concepts for Arranging Icons

4.3.2 Results of Screenshot Study 117

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5 Concepts for Arranging Icons

4.3.2 Results of Screenshot Study 117

Occurrences of Concepts(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

(1) usage-based 62 % 28 % 6 % 2 % 4 %

(2) relatedness-based 28 % 60 % 6 % 3 % 3 %

(3) usability based 6 % 6 % 9 % 2 % 0 %

(4) aesthetic-based 2 % 3 % 2 % 5 % 0 %

(5) external concepts 4 % 3 % 0 % 0 % 9 %

- Usage-based and relatedness-based most popular- People also apply hybrid concepts- Concept impacts icon layout

- More apps on first page if usage-based- More folders on first page if relatedness-based

Grouping of Apps into Folders

People cluster follow-up apps- Camera apps w/ photo editing apps - Shopping apps w/ payment apps

People cluster similar apps- Apps for sending text messages- Dictionaries- Music- Games

Discovering

Multitasking

What are the costs of multitasking between apps?

app use ...... app use cont‘dinterruptiontime

...app use...time

- Study based on data set of mobile app usage- Mining for interruptions within data set

- Another application (self interruption)- Incoming phone call (external interruption)

- Duration of overhead

Detecting Interruptions

overhead

app use app use cont‘d

app use

Findings

- Interruptions do not happen as often as expected- 8% of app use is interrupted by app switching - 3% of app use is interrupted by phone calls

- If interruptions happen, overhead may be exceedingly high

phone call app switch

Daily interruptions (% usage) 3.2 (2.2) 8.3 (5.3) per user

Regular app runtime (s) 24.8 (31.8) 18.9 (24.4)per app

Overhead duration (s) 43.2 (65.9) 34.4 (40.7)

mean (SD)

No Evolution of Phone UIs

- When phones became computers the design of phone UI did not change accordingly

- Still only accept and decline button- Call application has superior status

Re-Design of Phone UIs

Prototype ImplementationAndroid-based implementation of approaches b) to e)Available for study in the wild and testing:

Problem and IdeaMobile phones evolved form single-purpose devices to multi-purpose devicesThe design of phone call applications did not evolve accordinglyIncoming phone calls can interrupt concurrent application useWe revise the design of call applications to allow for higher degree of multitasking

Extending Phone Call Applicationsa) Current design: Full-screen modal dialogs providing only options to accept or decline callb) Postponing calls: Additional third option besides accept/decline to allow user to return to previous applicationc) Multiplexing: Allows user to keep attention in previous application while call is pendingd) Background notifications: Puts incoming call into background for user to pickup call at wille) Scheduling on app completion: Wait until task is done and display call when user leaves previous app

Revisiting Phone Call Applicationsfor Multipurpose Mobile Phones

CALLER NAME CALLER NAME

CALLER NAME

Discussion, Challenges and Future WorkA model for predicting overhead would allow to determine which option (b to e) to choose for handling callsWhen user is multitasking the caller needs to be kept in line, e.g. by signalling “user is currently writing a mail”Other modalities need to be taken into account (esp. vibration and ringtone) and aligned with visual notification

a) Current design b) Postponing calls c) Multiplexing d) Background notification

Interruptions do not happen as often as expected!3% of app use is interrupted by phone calls (external)!

- Extending the design space for phone call UIs- New interaction design for phone call handling- Support for better multitasking with call notifications

- Application CallHeads - Extension of standard call app- Available on Google Play store

- 45k users worldwide- Very positive feedback

- People do passive decline

Novel Phone Call DesignUs

call c

- Funf- Context logging framework- Easy to use with support for dropbox- http://www.funf.org!

- AWARE Framework- Standalone app and library- Open architecture, awesome team, good support!- http://www.awareframework.com!

- AppSensor (our project)- Focus on tracing mobile app usage - Basic code for building your own app- https://github.com/matboehmer/appsensor

Starting Points

Conclusion

- Insights from app usage sequences- Supporting people for finding icons

- Five concepts for arranging icons- Where do users place your app icon?

- Attention to apps is highly fragmented- We propose novel phone call design

Launching

Housekeeping

Multitasking

- App addictions- App use can become problematic- Habit forming: “Checking habit”

- Android app AppDetox- People can set rules for app usage- App launches will be prohibited

according to rules

Helping with App Addictions

Thank you!Dr. Matthias Böhmer [email protected]://matthiasboehmer.de!Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH http://dfki.de

Additional material - Böhmer, Krüger: A study on icon arrangement by smartphone users. In Proc. of CHI 2013 - Böhmer, Hecht, Schöning, Krüger, Bauer: Falling asleep with Angry Birds, Facebook and

Kindle: a large scale study on mobile application usage. In Proc. of MobileHCI 2011- Böhmer, Ganev, Krüger: AppFunnel: A framework for usage-centric evaluation of recommender

systems that suggest mobile applications. In Proc. of IUI 2013- Parate, Böhmer, Chu, Ganesan, Marlin: Practical prediction, prefetch, and prelaunch for faster

access to applications on mobile phones. In Proc. of UbiComp 2013- Böhmer, Bauer: Exploiting the icon arrangement on mobile devices as information source for

context-awareness. In Proc. of MobileHCI 2010- Leiva, Böhmer, Gehring, Krüger: Back to the app: the costs of mobile application interruptions.

In Proc. of MobileHCI 2012- Böhmer, Bauer: Improving the recommendation of mobile services by interpreting the user’s

icon arrangement. In Proc. of MobileHCI 2009- Böhmer, Prinz, Bauer: Contextualizing Mobile Applications for Context-aware

Recommendation. In Adjunct Proceedings of Pervasive 2010- Böhmer, Gehring, Hempel, Krüger: Revisiting Phone Call UIs for Multipurpose Mobile Phones.

In Proc. of MobileHCI 2013- Böhmer, Lander, Krüger. What’s in the apps for context? Extending a sensor for studying app

usage to informing context-awareness. In Proc. of UbiMI 2013- Löchtefeld, Böhmer, Ganev: AppDetox: Helping Users with Mobile App Addiction. In Proc. of

MUM 2013.!

- Papers available on website: http://matthiasboehmer.de- Data partly available on website: http://matthiasboehmer.de/data/

Credits and icons - Rocket designed by Cris Dobbins from The Noun Project- Broom designed by Nick Green from The Noun Project- Lightning Bolt designed by daisy binks from The Noun Project- Magnifying Glass designed by Nadir Balcikli from The Noun Project- Clock designed by Nick Green from The Noun Project- Location designed by Ricardo Moreira from The Noun Project- Eye designed by Sergi Delgado from The Noun Project

understanding mobile application usage

Technology

mobile application usage

tracing app usage

day app usage correlates

important mobile phones

growth of mobile ecosystem

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available applicationsgoogle

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