User Perceptions of the Security of Mobile Applications

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 24-41
Author(s):  
Yasmeen Elsantil

With the exponential increase in the use of mobile devices across the globe, there is a concomitant need to understand how mobile users perceive the security of mobile application, and the potential risks involved in accessing and downloading them. Such an understanding will enable users to ensure the apps they download are secure and create greater awareness in the marketplace of the presence of hackers and malware used to invade the privacy and personal details of smartphones users. Research on the perception of users' mobile security is very limited and needs further investigation. This study aims to identify how mobile users perceive the security of different mobile apps and the extent to which different apps affect such perceptions. This study also investigates mobile user preferences for the places where they can access apps and their perceptions of risk at marketplaces vs. websites. This study is based on a qualitative research in which interviews were conducted with 32 university students. The study found that mobile users do not feel secure when installing mobile apps, and that concerns about hacking personal and private information are pervasive. Users expressed more security concerns regarding entertainment apps such as games and communication rather than financial apps, such as banking. The study also found that users prefer installing apps from app stores. The findings of this research contribute a greater understanding of how mobile users perceive mobile app security and offers insights that will help developers adjust their security policies to ensure users' security. The study also presents theoretical and empirical contributions, along with limitations and suggestions for further work.

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora Griffin-Shirley ◽  
Devender R. Banda ◽  
Paul M. Ajuwon ◽  
Jongpil Cheon ◽  
Jaehoon Lee ◽  
...  

Introduction The literature indicates that few studies have been conducted with persons with visual impairments (that is, those who are blind or have low vision) concerning mobile application or “app” usage. The current study explores the use of mobile apps with this population globally. Methods A total of 259 participants with visual impairments completed an online survey. Descriptive statistics and bivariate tests were used to examine associations between demographic characteristics and mobile app use. Results The participants rated special apps as useful (95.4%) and accessible (91.1%) tools for individuals with visual impairments. More than 90% of the middle-aged adult group strongly agreed with the practicality of special apps, a significantly higher percentage than was observed in the young and old adult groups. In addition, the participants with low vision considered special apps less accessible than did those with blindness (p < .05). Discussion Results show that persons with visual impairments frequently use apps specifically designed for them to accomplish daily activities. Furthermore, this population is satisfied with mobile apps and would like to see improvements and new apps. Implications for practitioners Developers of apps for individuals with visual impairments need to refine and test the existing apps. Practitioners need to be knowledgeable about app usage so they can provide effective instruction to their students or clients. This study provides preliminary information regarding app usage among persons with visual impairments.


The current study developed a proposed mobile app for tourism companies in Egypt and tested its usability. A survey from a group of 53 respondents was conducted based on the mobile app features which were developed by tourists. The proposed mobile app was then tested by using usability measurement framework which was used to test the usability of the app interface and to ensure that this app meets user requirements. Three main usability metrics were employed in this study; effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. This study contributes to the current Mobile tourism and Mobile apps literature and offers useful information for ministry of tourism, software companies, mobile application developers and, of course, mobile device users in addition to entrepreneurs, policy makers, practitioners, researchers and educators through providing a clearer view and deep understanding for the issues related to the adoption of tourism-related new mobile phone application in Egypt.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund Wut ◽  
Peggy Ng ◽  
Ka Shing Wilson Leung ◽  
Daisy Lee

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether gamified elements affect the use behaviour of young people (between age 12 and 25 years) on consumption-related mobile applications. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted on 151 young people between the ages of 12 and 25 years. Findings The results showed that use behaviour on consumption mobile applications was affected by gamification. Behavioural intention to use was affected by the performance expectancy (PE) and effort expectancy (EE) of mobile application designs. Mobile applications characteristics do not affect behavioural intention to use mobile applications but through the mediator mobile application designs. Research limitations/implications This study also proposes mechanisms that explain how mobile apps characteristics affect EE and PE through app designs. Use behaviour is affected by Gamification elements. Affective need and social need link up uses and gratification (U&G) theory and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT)in gamification context. This study confirms the affective need affecting behavioural intention (Thongsri et al., 2018). In this regard, the mechanism between the relationship of affective need and behavioural intention was showed. Affective need through both PE and EE influencing behavioural intention. Practical implications Corporations should consider adding gamified elements into consumption-related mobile apps to increasing usage behaviour. Lucky draws, quizzes and games could be built in for mobile apps. Mobile app designs and characteristics could improve user experience by allowing consumers to perform their search and buying processes easily. Mobile app designs will not directly influence “behavioral intention to use” but use behaviour. Social implications Practitioners need to look at the problem from technological and customer perspectives. From technological viewpoint, both mobile apps characteristics and design are important in affecting user behaviour. From customer’s perspective, it would be helpful to add gaming elements to the mobile apps and induce emotion. One may also use visual image to create an immersive experience on the development of storyline. Prospective customers might focus on what is going on in the story and pay less attention on its own logic. Thus, simply lucky draw might not have a true effect since player have its own belief working. A suitable story element could have positive effect on mobile apps use behaviour. Originality/value This study is one of the first to examine the association between gamification and use behaviour on consumption-related mobile applications. A new framework was proposed by integrating UTAUT model and U&G theory.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1.1) ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
D Naga Malleswari ◽  
A Dhavalya ◽  
V Divya Sai ◽  
K Srikanth

Mobile phone have user’s personal and private information. When mobile applications have the permission to access to this information they may leak it to third parties without user’s consent for their own benefits. As users are not aware of how their personal information would be used once applications are installed and permissions are granted, this raises a potential privacy concern. Therefore, there is a need for a risk assessment model that can intimate the users about the threats the mobile application poses to the user's private information. We propose an approach that helps in increasing user’s awareness of the privacy risk involved with granting permissions to Android applications. The proposed model focuses on the requested permissions of the application and determines the risk based on the permission set asked and gives a risk score.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konglin Zhu ◽  
Xiaoman He ◽  
Bin Xiang ◽  
Lin Zhang ◽  
Achille Pattavina

With the rapid proliferation of mobile devices, explosive mobile applications (apps) are developed in the past few years. However, the functions of mobile apps are varied and the designs of them are not well understood by end users, especially the activities and functions related to user privacy. Therefore, understanding how much danger of mobile apps with respect to privacy violation to mobile users is becomes a critical issue when people use mobile devices. In this paper, we evaluate the mobile app privacy violation of mobile users by computing the danger coefficient. In order to help people reduce the privacy leakage, we combine both the user preference to mobile apps and the privacy risk of apps and propose a mobile app usage recommendation method named AppURank to recommend the secure apps with the same function as the “dangerous” one for people use. The evaluation results show that our recommendation can reduce the privacy leakage by 50%.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Susan Boller

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that library staff can develop their own mobile app without having significant technology experience by using existing, easily accessible low-cost programs. Smart phones and tablets are here to stay. Libraries need to embrace this trend by developing mobile apps to encourage reading and provide access to resources that are safe and educational. It is about putting technology at the service of reading. Susan Boller and Marie-Pierre Preece, librarians at Les Marronniers Primary School at the International School of Geneva, received wide recognition when they were awarded the 2016 ALA Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects for their mobile application “Marronniers Library”. Design/methodology/approach The search to develop a mobile application was challenging. “The process was long and complex, as we had a very small budget and no particular expertise in information technology”. While researching the best way to develop an app for her library, Susan Boller explored a wide range of options with differing costs ranging from a few hundred dollars to over $20,000 (for a custom-built app). Findings It is feasible for a school library with limited resources to develop its own mobile application. The library staff can develop such an app without having significant technology experience by using existing easily accessible low-cost programs. Developing and maintaining such an app do not require specialist IT knowledge, and these can be done internally by people interested in technology. The app is good value. The annual cost, excluding subscriptions to databases, is approximately $400. Such an app is well sustainable. The chosen platform is flexible and allows the content to be continuously maintained and updated internally at any moment without additional cost. Originality/value Having been awarded the 2016 ALA Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects demonstrates the originality of the author's “Marronniers Library” mobile application. It is, to the best of the author's knowledge, the only one of its kind in a primary school library.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konglin Zhu ◽  
Zexuan Liu ◽  
Lin Zhang ◽  
Xinyu Gu

Explosive mobile applications (Apps) are proliferating with the popularity of mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets). These Apps are developed to satisfy different function needs of users. Majority of existing App Stores have difficulty in recommending proper Apps for users. Therefore, it is of significance to recommend mobile Apps for users according to personal preference and various constraints of mobile devices (e.g., battery power). In this paper, we propose a mobile App recommendation framework by incorporating different requirements from users. We exploit modern portfolio theory (MPT) to combine the popularity of mobile Apps, personal preference, and mobile device constraints for mobile App recommendation. Based on this framework, we discuss the recommendation approaches by constraints of phone power and limited mobile data plan. Extensive evaluations show that the proposed mobile App recommendation framework can well adapt to power and network data plan constraints. It satisfies the user App preference and mobile device constraints.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Laith T. Khrais ◽  
Abdullah M. Alghamdi

Most retailers are integrating their practices with modern technologies to enhance the effectiveness of their operations. The adoption of technology aims to enable businesses to accurately meet customer needs and expectations. This study focused on examining the role of mobile application (app) acceptance in shaping customer electronic experience. A mixed method was adopted, in which qualitative data were collected using interviews, and quantitative data were gathered using the questionnaires. The results indicate that mobile app acceptance contributes to a positive customer experience while purchasing products and services from online retailers. Mobile apps are associated with benefits, such as convenience, ease of use, and the ability to access various products and services. With the rapid development in technology, e-commerce retailers should leverage such innovations to meet customer needs.


Author(s):  
Abdul Karim ◽  
Azhari Azhari ◽  
Meshrif Alruily ◽  
Hamza Aldabbas ◽  
Samir Brahim Belhaouri ◽  
...  

Google play store allow the user to download a mobile application (app) and user get inspired by the rating and reviews of the mobile app. A recent study analyzes that user preferences, user opinion for improvement, user sentiment about particular feature and detail with descriptions of experiences are very useful for an application developer. However, many application reviews are very large and difficult to process manually. Star rating is given of the whole application and the developer cannot analyze the single feature. In this research, we have scrapped 282,231 user reviews through different data scraping techniques. We have applied the text classification on these user reviews. We have applied different algorithms and find the precision, accuracy, F1 score and recall. In evaluated results, we have to also find the best algorithm.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 10536-10543

The usage of hand-held and mobile devices has been increased rapidly in recentyears. The execution of sophisticated softwares and Apps on mobile phonescan lead to poor performance with respect to energy consumption and responsetime. With the emergence of the offloading concept of App workloads, an attempt has been made toimprove the performance of the hand-held devices by exploiting cloud service. The computation offloadingin hand-held devices consumes energy as well as time for transferring the datafrom hand-held devices to cloud. For the effective use of cloud services, there is a need to optimize the execution time of mobile App and energy consumedby the respective App. Many research endeavors have been made in recentyears to reduce the execution time and energy consumption during offloadingprocess. However, the usage of offloading has been evolved to quench the thirstof mobile users who execute multiple Apps simultaneously and are in dire needof seamless connectivity but some dynamic algorithms are needed to decidewhether offloading is favorable or not for a mobile App. If the mobile Apptakes more time and consumes more battery if executed on cloud then it isrecommended to use mobile platform rather than using cloud services. In thispaper, we are presenting machine learning based techniques which would help the mobile users in decision making to execute the App on mobile devices or on cloud using cloud services.


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