International Journal of Computer and Information Technology (ISSN: 2279 – 0764) Volume 04 – Issue 03, May 2015 www.ijcit.com 547 Usability Evaluation of Mobile Game Applications: A Systematic Review Azham Bin Hussain School of Computing Universiti Utara Malaysia 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia Email: azham.h [AT] uum.edu.my Sharaf Aldeen Abdulkadhum Abbas School of Computing Universiti Utara Malaysia 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia Mustafa Sabah Abdulwaheed School of Computing Universiti Utara Malaysia 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia Rammah Ghanim Mohammed School of Computing Universiti Utara Malaysia 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia Adil abdullah Abdulhussein School of Computing Universiti Utara Malaysia 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia Abstract— Mobile devices and mobile applications have proven significant advantages in their implementation. Among the advantages could be seen in their usability, in which users tasks have been made hugely simplified. In regard to that, this paper reports on a systematic review on usability evaluations on game applications for mobile environment. It presents the main concepts, factors and methodologies of usability evaluation for mobile application. Altogether, 21 studies have been selected for the review. In most studies, the usability phase is done after finishing the applications’ implementation. Expert Review and Play testing Method is the most popular technique to evaluate mobile game. Keywords--: Mobile Application, Usability Engineering, Usability Evaluation, Systematic Review. I. INTRODUCTION Recently, mobile phones have become very popular in people’s daily life as well as in business. Statistics show that nearly 3.3 billion mobile connections exist worldwide and the number is increasing every day. Information Technology (IT) trends and purchasing policies indicate that individuals use their personal phone for work. Mobile business has become mainstream and it is predicted that there will be more than 1.3 billion mobile workers. This situation has caused mobile applications to emerge as corporate IT initiatives that need to support the organizational functions [1, 2]. In ensuring applications in mobile environment are usable, measuring usability is an essential task. Part of the aims of usability measure is to ensure the application is accurate, has sufficient speed, and that the application is safe for the users. In its’ early deployment, the usability of an application was determined subjectively. Particularly, the process was not well-defined. In such situation, the aspects for measurement were up to the researchers, which sounds very loose. However, at the same time, the usability measurement and the methods for analysis were being developed [3, 4]. Generally, usability refers to the capability of a product to be understood, learned, operated, and be attractive to users when used to achieve the determined goals in the specified environments effectively and efficiently. It is normally demonstrated through the interface. Since its’ deployment, a number of usability guidelines and standards have been introduced to ensure software products could meet this quality. Those guidelines are however generic rules for designing and developing web and desktop applications. Meanwhile, usability guidelines for mobile applications are still lacking and have been relatively unexplored and unproven. Although several usability guidelines for mobile games have been discovered, they are isolated and disintegrated. This issue is critical as the existing usability guidelines are insufficient to design effective interface for mobile applications due to peculiar features and dynamic application context in mobile environment [2, 5]. The present paper conducts to review previous related studies and current measurement factors and methodologies for usability evaluation of mobile games through systematic literature review (SLR). The paper has organized as Section one introduction, section two describes the process of designing and performing the SLR, section three discusses the results and the details which obtained, and, finally, section four concludes the discussions in this paper and recommends for future enhancement.