Evaluating the usability of a mobile tourist guide: the mesh-t outdoor mobile application

Mobile tourism guides have placed themselves, in recent years, as essential apps for any smartphone or tablet user. Within this context and throughout its course, the mesh-t project: pervasive, ubiquitous and context-aware technologies in tourism, has sought out to approach the potential of these e-tourism applications in integrated services, through a transdisciplinary effort between the academic and professional world. Waging on ubiquity, participatory culture and transmedia storytelling as core concepts, within the mesh-t project different technical solutions have been developed in an attempt to create a unique and flowing experience. This paper describes work done on evaluating the usability of the outdoor mobile guide, one of those abovementioned solutions, by outlining the selected methodology, which included a combination of heuristic analysis and field trials, and presenting some of the preliminary results gathered so far.