Evaluating Creative Mobile Applications Development Using Emotional Design

Abstract

In this research paper, we adopt an integrative view of user involvement in software development; where, a user’s psychological state, at various phases of development, is linked to the contribution of user involvement in the success of software development. We explore the link between creativity and emotional design in order to evolve a conceptual framework for studying creativity in the fast growing area of mobile applications (apps) development. Action research, which is regarded as participatory, emancipatory and contextual, was adopted in this study. The study used a case study design and a survey of 1,502 students registered for a first year course in Management Information Systems at a large urban University in South Africa. Results from this study found that for app development to be more creative and innovative, emotional design should be part of the broader process of improving requirements engineering in Information Systems Development (ISD). We also found that in situations where emotional feedback is genuine, requirements engineering problems related to the “misinformation effect” common in ISD can be minimized. The third claim we affirm stronger is how users in ISD play a closer role as co-developers of mobile apps in order to realize true creativity and innovativeness. This study further demonstrated how subjective feelings in ISD can be evaluated using visual artifacts such as the Emocard.