1. Mobile App Optimization and Testing
Battery Life, Usability and Data Usage
Moe Tanabian © 2011 Intuigence Group. Confidential - For internal use only. Do not distribute.
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www.Intuigencegroup.com © 2011 INTUIGENCE Group
Confidential - For internal use only. Do not distribute.

2. Intuigence Group: Mobile/CE User Experience testing and design experts
Extensive International involvement and key influencer on new mobile user experience testing and
design for leading mobile operators and device OEMs
 GCF, Pre FIT, DFIT
Functional  CDMA, HSAP(+), LTE
 Voice Quality
testing  Mobility, Dropped calls
 Data throughput, connection
 Device power benchmarking
What we do: Battery life  Battery life testing
testing  Component level power consumption
profiling
We are a specialized
engineering firm in
Mobile and CE  Usability testing
usability and user Usability  Visibility, Performance, Feedback,
experience testing & Testing Accessibility
design:  Reliability
 CPU performance
 App functional testing
App UX  Data consumption testing
testing  Power consumption testing
 App competitive benchmarking
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

3. Power measurement and Battery life testing
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4. Different ways to measure battery consumption:
Component level, Device level, Application level
 In this method, the device power consumption is the aggregate of measured
HW Component power consumption at component level
level  This method is more accurate, and the results are more reproducible and
more suited for device OEMs
 The power is measured at the aggregate point of battery connection in this
method, for variety of scenarios of the device usage
Device level
 This method is easier, and more practical for most cases particularly for
operators
 The power is measured for a specific application, based on its demands on
specific system resources with material effect on power consumption
Application level
 Consistent power consumption testing during he development phase is the
effective way to find power hogs and optimize them
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

5. Power consumption testing and optimization go hand in hand. Without
measuring and testing, it’s hard to optimize power usage
 Measurements need to be repeated to become statistically reliable
Power Consumption
 300+ samples / sec
Testing
 Repeat for 35 times, and remove outliers
 Use external measurement tools, internal tools skew the results
 Define test scenarios that are reproducible (Loading your Facebook page
is not a good test case
Quick wins
Power Optimization
 GUI optimization:
Strategies
Reducing cognitive latency, Increasing Visibility, Use of Hot Keys,
Darker instead of Lighter
 Data consumption and radio usage
Other strategies:
 CPU, Memory access (Code optimization)
 Background processing
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

6. Battery life testing lab, instruments and equipments
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

7. Usability Testing
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8. Mobile/CE UX is an interactive experience and needs to be designed and tested
around different interactive usability dimensions
 Learnability : How easy it is to use for the first time
Mobile/CE Experience
 Efficiency : How many steps it takes to complete a (key) task
Usability dimensions
 Memorability : Does is get easier as the user repeat the task?
 Error recovery : How graceful is the error recovery?
 Accessibility : Easiness and simplicity of accessing (key) tasks
 Mapping : Does the UI response matches what the user expects?
 Visibility : Are important information the most visible?
 Feedback : Is user in control of the UI? And is she kept informed?
 Consistency : Do “like” items are displayed and acts the same way?
 Responsiveness: How responsive the UI interaction is?
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

9. Tasks need to be translated into required user actions to fulfill the task, then to
test cases to be executed for baselining and benchmarking
Task Analysis,
test cases Tasks per user segment, user actions
1 Task breakdown, user actions
Developing test cases
Improve task definition if needed
Baslining,
Benchmarking Running test cases for the baseline device
2 Running the test cases for benchmark devices
Post processing,
Result analysis Statistical analysis
3 Comparative reporting
Findings, Recommendation
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

10. Tasks need to be evaluated in the context of user segments; not all tasks are
relevant for each segment
Social Pragmatic Mobile
Feature Task Mobirati
Connectors Adopters Professional
1 Browser Browse to website via URL    
2 Browser Browse to website from bookmark    
3 Calendar Find calendar event by week 
4 Calendar Find calendar event via agenda 
5 Calendar Create calendar event 
6 Camera Take a picture with the camera  
7 Clock Set alarm  
8 Email Compose and send email    
9 Email Reply to email    
10 Email Forward email    
11 Email Find email via search    
12 Facebook Share a picture on Facebook  
13 Facebook Update your status on Facebook  
14 Facebook Add friend in Facebook 
15 Facebook Find friends on Facebook search 
16 Social Respond to a status update on the homescreen 
17 Gallery Browse pictures in the gallery   
18 Maps Show current location in Maps  
19 Maps Search for a place in Maps  
20 Maps Read reviews about place in Maps 
21 Maps Get directions in Maps 
22 Market Browse top-rated games on Market 
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

11. Data Usage Optimization
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12. A well data usage optimized mobile app is good business. It’s more attractive to
users and it often consumes less battery
 The average smartphone non-streaming application uses 10.7 MB per
hour (based on 50 most popular mobile apps, Q1/2011)
Why does it matter?
 Unlimited data plans are HISTORY! Metered data is the only way MNOs
will be able to remain viable and profitable businesses
 Mobile app developers will soon face greater user scrutiny on app data
usage
 More data consumption == Shorter Battery life
 Compression, Some people are building a business out of this: Onavo
Optimization
 Caching
Strategies
 Delta updates versus full updates
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© 2011 INTUIGENCE Group

13. Moe Tanabian
Managing Partner
moe.tanabian@intuigencegroup.com
+1-310-498-3217
Intuigence Group
269 South Beverly Dr.,
Suite 1127
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
United States
ph: 888-763-5171
www.intuigencegroup.com
Confidential - For internal use only. Do not distribute. © 2011 INTUIGENCE Group