Technology

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction
In this chapter, a discussion of related literature will look into the possible effects of gender on peoples perception of the usability of mobile phone applications and the various preferences of male and female mobile phone users. Looking at mobile phone applications in a general perspective, along with identifying similar health devices in relation the gym application, will be discussed in the latter part of this project.

By conducting research, it will look into the specific needs of different groups of users based on their gender differences. These specific needs will highlight the usability issues and requirements between male and females.

2.2 Mobile Phone Applications
The increased use in mobile telecommunications (particularly mobile phone use) has led to a growth in research which indicates that the use of mobile communications are influencing how we go about our daily lives from both a social and an economic perspective (Love, 2005). Mobile phones are basically devices that are designed in such a way, that they provide communication between two parties through the radio waves and towers that are setup all over the city, country and areas where ever its services are offered.

However, in the present era mobile phones are not used for the purpose of receiving calls and sending text messages but there are a number of useful utilities and applications that have been designed and introduced with each passing day. The companies that are manufacturing mobile phones have put a lot of innovation in it with the passage of time. It is not limited to a few operations that it could perform earlier but it poses a lot scientific applications which provide equal facilities and flexibilities like a desktop PC or laptop.  Mobile phones now have become a good source for sharing data, transferring it to PC easily and quickly and even getting reliable and fast access to the internet. The availability of internet on such a compact medium has appreciated e-commerce on larger scale. The growing use of mobile phones and the design and development of mobile applications is basically the point which will be focused in the next few sections of this literature.

Mobile phone providers also create various software and applications to suit the needs of diverse users, from adolescent users to the elderly, males and females, students and professionals, and so on. Furthermore, mobile phone providers even set up unique application platforms that are exclusive for mobile phone brands. For instance, Apples iPhone is compatible with applications from the companys Apple store, while Nokia mobile phones are pre-installed with applications from the companys Ovi store. Mobile phones released by Microsoft with the Android platform also offer a wide variety of mobile phone applications for its users. (Gilroy, 2009) The range of mobile phone applications available for users includes business, education, social networking, health and lifestyle, communication, entertainment, and so on. With the rapid development of technology, mobile phone providers and third-party programmers are progressively developing new mobile applications each time in order to suit the needs of users.

For people who go to the gym and are conscious about their health, there are various applications available for them, such as calorie counters, exercise routine programmer and scheduler, body mass index (BMI) calculator, and so on. Apple has an application for the companys iPhone called iFitness, which is a reference list for exercise routines in gyms. iFitness shows the mobile phone user how specific routines should be done including the number of repetitions for each exercise, the kind of gym equipment required, etc. Mens Health Workout is another application for iPhone users that set up exercise routines for men depending on what they wish to achieve from working out.

2.3 Mobile Fitness Device Functions
Another experiment was taken place between different user groups to find the usefulness and perception of a mobile fitness device functions in terms of how they are sorted. This application consisted several sensors for measuring physiological issues in a human body.  The purpose of this experiment was to look at the possible effects of different groups of users When designing applications targeting to large audiences, the devices features should map to the preferences and expectations of the target users. Thus it is important to investigate the user perceptions when interacting with such devices.  (A. Ahtinen, et al., 2007).  Users have different perception in terms of specific needs when interacting with a device and it resulted that users with different aspirations want different features for a fitness and health-care device


2.4 Mobile Phone Interface Usability Issues Male Vs Female
It has also been observed that male and female mobile users have a bit differences in terms of likeness to posses mobile phone and its usage. The impact of individual differences (such as age, gender, cognitive ability and memory) on users performance and perception of the usability of a service or application have been well documented in humancomputer interaction literature (Tun and Wingfield, 1997 Palmquist, 2001 Goodman, Brewster and Gray, 2004).

 A study conducted in 2006 revealed the facts about mobile usage by women. It said that 50 of female mobile users said that they make half of their calls from their mobile phones and almost 50 women when interview commented that mobile phones are much time saver than any other medium of communication. It was also observed that women on average 35 to 39 want their mobile phone near them all the day. When both genders were asked about the activities they perform on mobile phone women were found more interested to go for ring tones, taking pictures of family member, sending text messages to friends etc. Mostly women says that they prefer their items to be bespoke, they like to differentiate them with others carrying trendy things for this purpose they keep stylish and modified mobile phones and go for more and more new features. (Alex, 2006)

On the other hand, if mobile phone usage in males is considered, it has been observed that males go for style, status, and fashion when talking about mobile phones and do purchasing according to these terms as compare to females. On the whole that is what makes the user but phones is mainly safety and security besides taking care of fashion and trends and the value added services that the mobile vendors and mobile companies are providing. (IDC press release, 2005)

A recent study conducted related to mobile usage by males and females, involved university students. The study gave a task to some 33 males and 29 females, to test short and long-term memory in them. The students were tested under three conditions, no phone exposure, active phone exposure and inactive phone exposure. The task was to learn some words that were given in a two-dimensional shape and within a limited time of 3 minutes. 12 minutes later they were asked to place the shapes and words in right places, similar exercise was made again and it was observed that males who were exposed to active phones made less errors while females stayed unaffected by the exercise, hence the conclusion was made that mobile usage facilitates memory in males but not females and it has gender issues and affects so obvious that it can be seen from any such exercise like the one mentioned above. (Smythe, James W, 2003)

The matter of maintaining style by Men and Women can never be ignored. It exists and expands with the passage of time. As more awareness, education and sense of maintaining style, fashion and trends is developed Men and Women are found to be more conscious about the stuff they keep. According to some analysts as they say women are not found to be more careful about the characteristic, uniqueness and standard of the product they as compare to men which is a false conclusion at a large extent. According to a recent study, women put more focus on the form of product while men go for the functionalities. Somehow both want ease of use. While talking about the form of product men are more concerned with sharp edges and lines, and women with curves, rounds and similar shapes. Like the nature they posses men like hard, metallic sort of interfaces while women go for soft, warm and matt looks.  Women are observed to be more inclined towards themes like nature, feminism etc while men mostly prefer ease of use in the interface. (Lishan Xue and Ching Chiuan Yen, 2007)

Schematic representation of aesthetic key points for the two genders
(Lishan Xue and Ching Chiuan Yen, 2007)

2.5 PC Usage Male Vs Female
It has been a topic of great interest by educators and scholars that why there exists difference in way of thinking of men and women with regard to the usage of technology and specifically computers.  The research questions to be discussed at this point are do men and women really have differences in their attitude towards the use of technology Are their daily lives, work and study affected by the technology usage  The demographic study showed that men and women both showed less concern when asked about how much influence technology has on their professional and personal lives. The response that showed it actually have some affect was some 2.06 for men and 1.5 for women. As computer has become an essential component of at homes and classrooms, offices and cafes therefore it is obvious to observe the gender differences in its usage.

Female student are more interested to peruse computer based or technology based career as they show more interest to contribute in it by their hard work and putting their creative side in it. While when these students go for career oriented jobs although it has been observed that women wants to keep aside from getting into technicalities but with the passage of time trends are changing and management should provide equal opportunities to males as well as females on technological assignments and projects. (Charles M. Ray, 1999)

The demographic report also showed, female considers the computers a fun and multitasking, adventurous device while men take it as a machine. Men wants to lead , they want the machine to do exactly what they want, they want to master themselves in its usage ,on contrary women concentrates on the usage of computers, its features, the facilities provided etc. This difference according to gender is found because generally technology is more associated with men and females stays a bit away from learning to command the machine. (Charles M. Ray,n.d)

In a recent study, an investigation of gender HCI issues using formative work.  The formative work was used to consider design using gender-conscious design features in the prototype to meet genders requirements.  The reason behind conducting this study was because women perceive that applications are less focus on them because designers tend to forget about their requirements. Designers ignorance of gender differences is particularly evident in studies showing software is unintentionally designed for males. (Beck, L 2005).  This study shows that designers must consider requirements from both gender differences in terms of usability, whether its software, mobile application, PC interface etc as they both have specific requirements from each other.

As a usability principle of any type of interface, icons are very important part of the usability principles. A previous study investigated the user preferences in terms of icons as what icon is easy to recognise. The study took place in the Taiwan area dealing with teenagers of both gender looking at mobile phone icon recognise. Two questionnaires took place including 5 concrete icons, 5 abstract icons and 5 arbitrary icons. The questionnaires were designed to examine icon recognition and teenagers favourite icons. . However there is no gender difference in the recognition of concrete icons or arbitrary icons. Out of the three icons, according to female teenagers they prefer abstract icons because of their richer concepts, while male teenagers prefer concrete icons because of the ease of learning them (Chung, S et al., 2007).

The study conducted by Compton  Burkett (2003) also revealed that there is no significant difference in the perceptions or perspectives of between male and female users. In the study, Compton  Burkett (2003) surveyed 697 male and female students from three different colleges in order to determine the differences in knowledge, dependence, and use of the PC. The results of the study proved that there are no specific differences and that both male and female users have certain apprehensions in utilizing the PC and both gender populations have equal knowledge about the PC interface.

 2.6 Various Applications Available for Mobile Phones      
 While talking about mobile phone usage and being interested in various innovative applications, it is found that not only mobile messengers, converters, trackers are famous, but more advanced applications like the one which can be installed on PC can be developed for mobile phone users. One of the many possible applications can be a health and fitness gym application which can provide services to the user on its mobile phone rather than visiting it. With regards to the Gym goers and with respect to gender first then the main point can be reached. For better understanding of the requirement of this application, it would start with the difference in thinking of men and women for using Gym and keeping themselves in the shape. (WellSphere, 2009)

Males take the activity of going to Gym as a challenge, they like to look fit, make biceps, and muscles feel stronger and do competitive exercises. They take it as a sport and do it for fun it is a task for them. On the contrary, women take this activity like a luxury its something like for maintaining their beauty no more than makeup. Whats natural in women is the urge to look good and thats the basic desire of going to Gym for them. The one thing that is a major concern for is health and fitness. Getting inside to this discussion it has also been observed that men are more likely to spend time in Gym and fitness, while women have to make sacrifice if they have a family and kids to look after. Women easily let go their fitness hours and fatigue of going to Gym than men.  Therefore, women easily make a compromise of their health as compare to let their family and other responsibilities being affected by their extra hours of exercising and most of the time their dream of being in a good shape and look attracted stay behind comparing with men. (WellSphere, 2009)

2.7 Various Aspects of Mobile Application
There are numerous companies in the market who have hired researchers and programmers to think and find the solution to such problems where people require some personal assistant to remind them about their daily routines, like taking medicine on time, cut the sugar usage, increase the vitamin use weekly etc. They collect statistics of such people who are facing the problem and are regular and frequent user of mobile phones, and then they go for performing some research of all possible sorts of flexibilities and environment that can be provided to such people on a mini device in their hands and pockets all the time. For this purpose, companies are working on an application that can be installed on mobile phones easily and can be used just as a person is visiting consultant physically. It will be explained in the later part of this paper but that part has some connection with these kinds of inventions. One of the many such applications which can be observed is Accenture Personal Performance Coach.  This is the result of research conducted at Accenture labs under the subject human-computer interactions.  According to a senior researcher at Accenture, mobile phones today are much more than just call receiving and text sending devices, the expert further added that in the coming era, mobile phones will serve as a complete personal assistant for oneself which will guide and aware an individual about the physical attributes and the changes if any. It will also be a complete record keeper of your body attributes, which you can easily access anytime to compare the change good or bad to be updated about your health. (Accenture, 2009)

2.8 Discussion of Literature
Computers, Internet and technology usage is always great interest for human beings and getting a part of daily life. Where there are technology usage issues that exists gender differences and its effects on the humans. Female users are found to be more interested in looks, fashionable product with colours variations, shapes and styles matching their personality, while males are found to be more interested in the technological aspect, the usage options, more usability issues and quality of the product. In this rushing world, people do not get enough time to waste physically approaching shops and outlets to get the gadgets of their type and interest therefore Internet marketing and e-business become a popular term. By the passage of time services like home remedy, self medication, e-hospital and doctor consultation also became a part of human life, similar is the trend of maintaining oneself by staying in touch with gym where there is no time to visit physically.

Similar is the case when it comes to the usage of cell phones, of course there exists some gender issues and differences that how males and females takes this technology and its usage. As mentioned in literature review that cell phones usage has become more and more popular among young males and females and even it is giving great impacts on human memory like putting reminders, alarms and meeting schedules in it these features however found to affect more frequently in males as compare to females. The memorizing exercise proved this fact, when a study was conducted taking as sample of 29 females and 33 males. Hence one can say that males and females are so dependant on technological advancement that it is getting a part of daily life.

Therefore willing to stay in shape but unfortunately lack of time and extra money can cause a number of males and females to stay long with only the desire of being fit. The only solution to this problem is to have a mobile gym application that can be easily installed and used anywhere, anytime. An appropriate and user friendly application must be compatible with all sort of handsets, it should provide all the required services to the user that the malefemale might get going to gym and besides the progress record keeping which is the most highlighted feature should be well maintained. In this prototype, it has been tried to work with these ideas and as it is only prototype the actual developed end product might differ a bit in some features and options but will almost cover all the key points.

There is always room for improvement and innovation in the field of science, hence, this is not the last thing done, as mentioned earlier that companies are working and researchers are being conducted on human  computer interaction subject which is a very vast field to cover, this application is just a small contribution and can be extended with more and more features depending upon the user desirability of usage and requirements.

2.9 Summary
This literature review shows more research is needed in order to create guidelines for designers to develop interfaces to meet the needs of male and female. The following chapter describes the research methodologies used to help obtain the requirements.