Aug 29 - Masemola & de Villiers, Towards a Framework for Usability Testing of Interactive e-Learning Applications in Cognitive Domains...

Towards a Framework for Usability Testing of Interactive e-Learning Applications in Cognitive Domains, Illustrated by a Case Study.
S.S. (THABO) MASEMOLA AND M.R. (RUTH) DE VILLIERS. University of South Africa
S.S. Masemola, School of Computing, University of South Africa, P O Box 392, UNISA, 0003, South Africa; masemss@unisa.ac.za.
M.R. de Villiers, School of Computing, University of South Africa, P O Box 392, UNISA, 0003, South Africa; dvillmr@unisa.ac.za.
Proceedings of SAICSIT 2006, Pages 187 –197

Abstract
Testing has been conducted in a controlled usability laboratory on an interactive e-learning application that teaches mathematical skills in a cognitive domain. The study obtained performance measures and identified usability problems, but was focused primarily on using the testing technology to investigate distinguishing aspects of such applications, such as time usage patterns in domains where rapid completion is not necessarily a performance indicator. The paper addresses the issue of what, actually, is meant by ‘usability’ in learning environments. A pilot study identified obstacles and served to enhance the main study. Thinking-aloud on the part of participants provided useful data to support analysis of the performance measures, as can benchmarks and best case measures. Particular attention must be paid to ethical aspects. Features emerging from this study can contribute to a framework for usability testing and usage pattern analysis of interactive e-learning applications in cognitive domains.

What is Usability Testing?
Usability testing is a software evaluation technique that involves measuring the performance of typical end-users as they undertake a defined set of tasks on the system being investigated. It commenced in the early 1980s, as humanfactors professionals studied subjects using interfaces under real-world or controlled conditions and collected data on problems that arose (‘human factors’ is an early term for the human-computer interaction discipline). It has been shown to be an effective method that rapidly identifies problems and weaknesses, and is particularly used to improve the usability of products [Dumas, 2003; Dumas and Redish, 1999; Jeffries et al, 1991].
Since the early to mid-1990s, such testing has been empirically conducted in specialized controlled environments called usability laboratories, equipped with sophisticated monitoring and recording facilities for formal usability testing, supported by analytical software tools. It is an expensive technique. Participants, who are real end-users, interact with the product, performing specified representative tasks. Their actions can be rigorously monitored and recorded in various ways: by videotape − for subsequent re-viewing; event logging − down to keystroke level; and audio − to note verbalization and expressions.
The data, in both quantitative and qualitative forms, is analysed and changes can be recommended. Typical usability metrics include the time taken to complete a task, degree of completion, number of errors, time lost by errors, time to recover from an error, number of subjects who successfully completed a task, and so on [Avouris, 2001; Dix, Finlay, Abowd & Beale, 2004; ISO 9241, 1997; Preece, Rogers & Sharp, 2003; Wesson, 2002].

The primary targets of usability testing are the user interface and other interactive aspects. Such testing is used by academics for research and development, and also by usability practitioners in the corporate environment for rapid refinement of interfaces and analysis of system usability.

What is e-Learning?
Some definitions of e-learning equate it solely with use of the Internet in instruction and learning, but others [CEDEFOP, 2002; Wesson & Cowley, 2003] are broader, including multiple formats and methodologies such as the Internet and Web-based learning (WBL), multimedia CD-ROM, online instruction, educational software/courseware, and traditional computer-assisted learning (CAL). This approach suits the present study, which views e-learning as a
broad range of learning technologies encompassing various roles for technology, including interactive educational software, web-based learning, learning management systems, and learners using computers as tools [De Villiers, 2005].

Usability Testing
Dumas [2003] lists six defining characteristics of usability tests, while a seventh and eighth are obtained from Dumas and Redish [1999]:
1. The focus is usability.
2. Participants are end users or potential end users.
3. There is an artifact to evaluate, which may be a product design, a system or a prototype.
4. The participants think aloud as they progress through tasks.
5. Data is recorded and analysed.
6. The results are communicated to appropriate audiences (often a corporate client).
7. Testing should cover only a few features of the product, incorporated in selected tasks.
8. Each participant should spend approximately an hour doing the stated tasks.

Our methodology and test plan are based on general methodologies for formal usability testing [Pretorius, Calitz & Van Greunen, 2005; Rubin, 1994; Van Greunen & Wesson, 2002] but with some distinguishing features, such as the emphasis on participants thinking aloud and the use of a best case for initial benchmarking,...The broad methodology involves the following steps:
─ Set up objectives in line with research questions.
─ Determine the aspects to be measured and their metrics.
─ Formulate documents: Initial test plan, task list, information document for participants, checklist for administrator, and determine a means of investigating satisfaction.
─ Acquire representative participants.
─ Conduct a pilot test.
─ Refine the test plan, task list, and information document for the main usability test in the light of the pilot.
─ Conduct usability test.
─ Determine means of analysis and presentation that address the unique, as well as the usual, aspects.
─ Draw conclusions and make proposals for the way forward.


Conclusion

1. In addition to the identification of performance measures and problems, how can testing in a usability laboratory elicit valuable information about cognitive e-learning applications?
We propose that usability testing of e-learning applications should address both the interfaces and the learning content, because usability and functionality are closely related in e-learning. Performance metrics generated during learning activities can be used towards measuring the effectiveness aspect of usability, because success in the cognitive processing induced by learning functionality is fundamental to both usability and utility. It could be argued that conventional usability testing should be conducted on user interfaces only, to investigate users’ experiences with navigation features and the menus only. This could lead to improved interaction design, but it would be a paltry use of the capacity of the monitoring and analytical features in usability laboratories.

2. What activities/outputs yield meaningful information about interactive applications in such domains?
Innovative use of the usability lab technology led to usage analysis to identify usage patterns. Using data from thinking-aloud by subjects to clarify how they used their time, a clear distinction emerged between time spent navigating and time spent in cognitive activities. The act of configuring an environment or system to one’s own needs is called ‘incorporated subversion’ by Squires [1999]. In the present context, incorporated subversion of the usability testing technology led to added-value use of the laboratory and its software in novel and adaptable ways.

3. What notable features emerge from this study that can contribute specifically to a framework for usability testing of interactive e-learning in cognitive domains?
Generic frameworks and methodologies can be established, then customized for optimal usability testing of different kinds of e-learning applications and environments.
─ Attention to ethical aspects is of vital importance in this close-up recording of personal human activities.
─ A pilot study is essential to support the sensitive evolving plans and critical judgements that must be made.
─ This case study established the value of thinking out loud as a source of data, provided it is preceded by adequate preparation of participants.
─ The more fine-grained the tasks selected for testing, the better the data that is recorded.
─ Regarding the number of subjects, five are sufficient to identify usability problems, but are not enough to conduct serious analysis of learning and cognitive patterns. In this study the five participants generated valuable initial data on usage patterns and learning styles. Future in-depth research should be undertaken on low level, very finegrained tasks, accompanied by detailed analysis. With more data, realistic averages could be obtained to serve as benchmarks against which to compare future usage studies on small groups or single-subjects.
─ For the present, tentative benchmarks and best case measures were obtained. The best case provides a realistic optimum standard.

References that I may want to read further in future:
DE VILLIERS, M.R. 2004. Usability evaluation of an e-Learning tutorial: criteria, questions and a case study. In: G. Marsden, P. Kotzé, & A. Adesina-Ojo (Eds), Fulfilling the promise of ICT. Proceedings of SAICSIT 2004. ACM International Conference Proceedings Series.
DIX, A., FINLAY, J., ABOWD, G.D. and BEALE, R. 2004. Human-Computer Interaction. Pearson Education, Ltd, Harlow.
DUMAS, J.S. 2003. User-based evaluations. In: J.A. Jacko & A. Sears (Eds), The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
DUMAS, J.S. and REDISH, J.C. 1999. A practical guide to usability testing. Exeter: Intellect.
FAULKNER, X. 2000. Usability Engineering. Houndsmills: Macmillan Press.
ISO 9241. 1997. Draft International Standard: Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDT). Part 11: Guidance on Usability, ISO.
NIELSEN, J. 2000. Why you only need to test with five users. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html . Accessed March 2006.
SQUIRES, D. and PREECE, J. 1999. Predicting quality in educational software: Evaluating for learning, usability and the synergy between them. Interacting with Computers 11(5): 467–483.
VAN GREUNEN, D. and WESSON, J L. 2002. Formal usability testing of interactive educational software: A case study. World Computer Congress (WCC): Stream 9: Usability. Montreal, Canada, August 2002.
WESSON, J L. 2002. Usability evaluation of web-based learning: An essential ingredient for success, TelE-Learning 2002: 357- 363, Montreal, Canada, August 2002.
WESSON, J.L. and COWLEY, N. L. 2003. The challenge of measuring e-learning quality: Some ideas from HCI. IFIP TC3/WG3.6 Working Conference on Quality Education @ a Distance: 231-238, Geelong, Australia, February 2003.

Aug 29 - Jokela et al, ..Standard Definition of Usability: Analyzing ISO 13407 against ISO

The Standard of User-Centered Design and the Standard Definition of Usability: Analyzing ISO13407 against ISO9241-11.
Timo Jokela, Netta Iivari. Oulu University, P.O. Box 3000, 90014 Oulu, Finland. +358 8 5531011 {timo.jokela, mailto:netta.iivari%7D@oulu.fi
Juha Matero, Minna Karukka. Nokia, P.O. Box 50, 90571 Oulu, Finland. {juha.p.matero, mailto:minna.karukka%7D@nokia.com

ABSTRACT
ISO 9241-11 and ISO 13407 are two important standards related to usability: the former one provides the definition of usability and the latter one guidance for designing usability. We carried out an interpretative analysis of ISO 13407 from the viewpoint of the standard definition of
usability from ISO 9241-11. The results show that ISO 13407 provides only partly guidance for designing usability as presumed by the definition. Guidance for describing users and environments are provided but very limited guidance is provided for the descriptions of user goals and usability measures, and generally for the process of producing the various outcomes.

Probably the best known definition of usability is by Nielsen: usability is about learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction [16].

However, the definition of usability from ISO 9241-11 (Guidance on usability) [11] – “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use” - is becoming the main reference of usability.

In addition that it is largely recognized in literature, this ‘standard’ definition of usability is used in the recent Common Industry Format, CIF, for usability testing [1].

To improve the usability of software and information systems, the paradigm of user-centered design1, UCD, has been proposed by a number of method and methodology books, starting from Nielsen [16] to ones published in late 90’s, [8], [4], [5], [15] and ending up with a set of very recent ones, [17] and [18].

1 Called ‘human-centered design’ in ISO 13407. Also called ‘usability engineering’.

My Comments: I think this article is a good resource for "Definition of Usability."

ISO 13407 [9], Human-centred design processes for interactive systems, is a standard that provides guidance for user-centered design. ...it describes usability at a level of principles, planning and activities. A third important aspect is that ISO 13407 explicitly uses the standard definition of usability from ISO 9241-11 as a reference for usability.

Usability is defined in ISO 9241-11 [11] as follows:
Usability: The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
The terms are further defined as follows:
Effectiveness: the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals
Efficiency: the resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals
Satisfaction: freedom from discomfort, and positive attitude to the use of the product
Context of use: characteristics of the users, tasks and the organizational and physical environments
Goal: intended outcome
Task: activities required to achieve a goal

Generally, this definition of usability is a ‘broad’ approach to usability [2]: usability is about supporting users in achieving their goals in their work, it is not only a characteristic of a user interface.

..usability is a function of users of a product or a system (specified users). Further, for each user, usability is a function of achieving goals in terms of a set of attributes (i.e. effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction) and environment of use.

As an example, one usability measure of a bank machine
could be: • 90 % users achieve the goal (Es) in less than 1 minute (Ey) with an average satisfaction rating ‘6’ (S) when users are novice ones (U), and they want to have a desired sum of cash withdrawn (G) with any bank machine (Et).

The analysis of the definition of usability shows that one needs to determine the following outocomes when the definition is used in a development project:
(1) The users of the system,
(2) Goals of users,
(3) Environments of use
(4) Measures of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.

ISO 13407 is aimed to provide ‘overview’ guidance for the planning and management of user-centered design, not to provide detailed coverage of the methods and technique.

ISO 13407 is an international standard established in 1999. The standard “provides guidance on humancentred design activities throughout the life cycle of computer-based interactive systems”. The standard aims at “those managing design processes” and does not provide detailed coverage of methods and techniques.

ISO 13407 describes user-centered design from four
different aspects:
• Rationale for UCD
• Planning UCD
• Principles of UCD
• Activities of UCD.

Rationale. The rationale part briefly describes the benefits that usable systems provide, such as reduction of training and support costs, improved user satisfaction and productivity of users.

Principles. The standard identifies four general principles that characterize user-centered design, and that are not bound to any specific phase of development cycle:
• The active involvement of users and a clear understanding of user and task requirements
• An appropriate allocation of functions between users and technology
• Iteration of design solutions
• Multi-disciplinary design.

Planning. The planning part provides guidance in fitting user-centered design activities into the overall system development process. Among other things, the standard emphasizes that project plans should reserve time and resources for iteration and user feedback. The importance of teamwork and communication is also mentioned.

Activities. The core of the standard – stated explicitly– is the description of user-centered design activities. The standard identifies four main activities of UCD, illustrated
in Figure 2:

Understand and Specify Context of Use. Know the user, the environment of use, and the tasks that he or she uses the product for.
Specify the User and Organizational Requirements. Determine the success criteria of usability for the product in terms of user tasks, e.g. how quickly a typical user should be able to complete a task with the product.
Determine the design guidelines and constraints. Produce Design Solutions. Incorporate HCI knowledge (of visual design, interaction design, usability) into design solutions.
Evaluate Designs against Requirements. The usability of designs is evaluated against user tasks.

Usability is one type of a quality characteristic in a product [10] among others, such as functionality, efficiency, reliability, maintainability and portability. In the requirement phase, when the quality requirements for a product are determined, also the usability requirements should be determined.
While all activities of life-cycle are relevant in the design of usability, the definition of usability has a critical impact especially in the requirements phase of a development project. The outcomes of these requirements activities (identification of users, goals, environments, usability measures) provide direction for the design phase and basis for planning evaluations.

In practice, Nielsen’s attributes as such are too ambiguous to be used in determining the usability requirements.

My Comments: This part of the article, particularly on User-Centred Design, is good on the process of applying usability throughout the entire design and development process.

Understand and specify the context of use
The standard describes the activity ‘Understand and
specify the context of use’ as follows:
The characteristics of the users, tasks and the organizational and physical environment define the context in which the system is used. It is important to understand and identify the details of this context in order to guide early design decisions, and to provide a basis for evaluation.
Information should be gathered about the context of use of new products and systems. If an existing system is upgraded or enhanced, this information may already be available but should be checked. If there are extensive results form user feedback, help desk reports and other data, these provide a basis fro prioritizing user requirements for system modifications and changes.
The context in which the system is to be used should be identified in terms of the following:
a) The characteristics of the intended users: relevant characteristics of the users can include knowledge, skill, experience, education, training, physical
attributes, habits, preferences and capabilities. If necessary, define the characteristics of different types of users, for example, with different levels of
experience of performing different roles (maintainers, installers, etc).
b) The tasks the users are to perform: the description should include the overall goals of the use of the system. The characteristics of tasks that can influence usability should be described, e.g. the frequency and the duration of performance”…. Tasks should not be described solely in terms of the functions or features.
c) The environment in which the users are to use the system: the environment includes the hardware, software and materials to be used. Their description
can be in terms of a set of products, one or more of which can be the focus of human-centred specification or evaluation, or it can be in terms of a set of
attributes or performance characteristics of the hardware, software and other materials. Relevant characteristics of the physical and social environment
should also be described. These can include relevant standards, attributes of the wider technical environment, the physical, ambient, legislative and the social and cultural environment.

The output from this activity should be a description of the relevant characteristics of users, tasks and environment, which identifies what aspects have an important impact on the system design. (See ISO 9241-11 for more information about the context of use and a sample report.)
The context of use description should
a) Specify the range of intended users, tasks and environments in sufficient detail to support design activity;
b) Be derived from suitable sources;
c) Be confirmed by users or if they are not available, by those representing their interests in the process;
d) Be adequately documented;
e) Be made available to the design team at appropriate times and in appropriate forms to support design activities.

Specify the user and organizational requirements
In most design processes, there is a major activity specifying the functional and other requirements for the product or system. For human-centred design, this activity should be extended to create an explicit statement of user and organizational requirements in relation to the context of use description. The following aspects should
be considered in order to identify relevant requirements:
a) Required performance of the new system against operational and financial objectives;
b) Relevant statutory or legislative requirements, including safety and health;
c) Co-operation and communication between users and other relevant parties;
d) The users’ jobs (including allocation of tasks, users’ well-being, and motivation);
e) Task performance;
f) Work design and organization;
g) Management of change, including training and personnel to be involved;
h) Feasibility of operation and maintenance;
i) The human-computer interface and workstation design.
User and organizational requirements should be derive and objectives set with appropriate trade-offs identified between the different requirements.
The specification of user and organizational requirements should:
a) Identify the range of relevant users and other personnel in the design;
b) Provide a clear statement of the human-centred design goals;
c) Set appropriate priorities for the different requirements;
d) Provide measurable criteria against which the emerging design can be tested;
e) Be confirmed by the users or those representing their interests in the process;
f) Include any statutory or legislative requirements;
g) Be adequately documented.

ISO 13407 does not address the general complexity and specific challenges related to systematic identification of different users, identification of the different goals that users may have; nor determination of measures (effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction) of usability. The determination of environments of use is addressed in most detailed manner.

DISCUSSION
ISO 9241-11 and ISO 13407 are two important standards related to usability: the former one provides the definition of usability and the latter one guidance for designing usability. We carried out an interpretive analysis of ISO 13407 from the viewpoint of the standard definition of usability from ISO 9241-11. The results show that ISO 13407 provides only partly guidance for designing usability as presumed by the definition. Guidance for describing users and environments are provided but very limited guidance is provided for the descriptions of user goals and usabilty measures, and generally for the process of producing the various outcomes.

References that I may want to read further in future:

1. ANSI. Common Industry Format for Usability Test Reports., NCITS 354-2001, 2001.

3. Bevan, N., Claridge, N., Maguire, M. and Athousaki, M., Specifying and evaluating usability requirements using the Common Industry Format: Four case studies. in IFIP 17th World Computer Conference 2002 - TC 13 Stream on Usability: Gaining a Competitive Edge, (Montreal, Canada, 2002), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 133-148.

8. Hix and Hartson. Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product & Process.
John Wiley & Sons, 1993.
9. ISO/IEC. 13407 Human-Centred Design Processes for Interactive Systems, ISO/IEC 13407: 1999 (E), 1999.

12. Jokela, T., Making User-Centred Design Common Sense: Striving for an Unambiguous
and Communicative UCD Process Model. in NordiCHI 2002, (Aarhus, Denmark, 2002), ACM, 19-26.
13. Jokela, T. and Iivari, N., Systematic Determination of Quantitative Usability Requirements. in to be published in the proceedings of HCI International 2003, (Crete, 2003).

15. Mayhew, D.J. The Usability Engineering Lifecycle. Morgan Kaufman, San Fancisco,
1999.
16. Nielsen, J. Usability Engineering. Academic Press, Inc., San Diego, 1993.
17. Rosson, M.B. and Carroll, J.M. Usability Engineering. Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2002.

Aug 28 - Definition of Usability & Mobile Learning

Definition of Usability

Evaluation of the technical and pedagogical mobile usability.
Antti Syvänen. antti.syvänen@uta.fi Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere, FIN-33014 Tampereen yliopisto, Finland.
Petri Nokelainen. petri.nokelainen@uta.fi Research Centre for Vocational Education, University of Tampere, FIN–13101 Hämeenlinna, Finland.
Attewell & Cavill-Smith (editor). Mobile Learning Anytime Everywhere. A book of papers from MLearn 2004. pg 191-185

The following components of the technical usability criteria were specified (Nokelainen 2004):
1 accessibility
2 ‘learnability’ and memorability
3 user control
4 help
5 graphical layout
6 reliability
7 consistency
8 efficiency
9 memory load
10 errors.

In addition, the following pedagogical usability components were specified (Nokelainen 2004):
1 learner control
2 learner activity
3 cooperative learning
4 goal orientation
5 applicability
6 effectiveness
7 motivation
8 valuation of previous knowledge
9 flexibility10 feedback.

Usability Guidelines for Designing Mobile Learning Portals.
Daniel Su Kuen Seong. The University of Nottingham, Malaysia. Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. +603-89248138 daniel.su@nottingham.edu.my
Mobility 06, Oct. 25–27, 2006, Bangkok, Thailand.
The 3rd International Conference on Mobile Technology, Applications and Systems — Mobility 2006.

The term usability is defined as by The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) ISO 9241-11 [16] as ‘the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.’
According to Nielsen [17], usability means the measure of the quality the users’ experience when interacting interface....usability is not a surface gloss which applied at the last minutes or before the releases of the system or product; but it is deeply affected by every stage of the analysis, design, and development [18].
Usable systems are easy to learn (learnability), efficient to use (efficiency), easy to remember (memorability), not error-prone (errors), and satisfactory in use (subjective satisfaction) [17].
The ultimate goal of usability is meeting the needs of to users’ satisfaction [17]
...advantages of usability encompass increased productivity, enhanced quality of work, improved user satisfaction, and reductions in support and training costs [19]. The reduction in costs has attracted many project managers and interface designers to employ the theory of usability when designing the interfaces as reported in [20, 21].

Cat 1: User Analysis
U1: The user/learner

Cat 2: Interaction
U2: Human-mobile interaction
U3: Map between mobile learning portals and the real world
U4: Help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors
U5: Visibility of the status
U6: Minimise human cognitive load

Cat 3: Mobile Learning Interface Design
U7: The small screen display
U8: Do not overuse
U9: Navigation
U10: Consistency.

Katja Karevaara, Media Education Centre, University of Helsinki.From educational usability to context-specific teachability: Development and use of the network-based teaching material contents in higher engineering education.

Pedagogical usability is often focusing on the aspects whether the interface, tools, content, and the tasks of the e-learning environments support learning in various contexts according to certain pedagogical objectives (Silius et al. 2003, Tervakari et al. 2002).

Research in pedagogical usability has been active recently. For example Kukulska-Hulme et al. (2004) conducted a project during 2001-2003 in Open University (UK). During the project it was recognised that "to get to the heart of pedagogical usability, we have to understand more about the impact of requirements in relation to communities, contexts and disciplines." The research group found therefore several layers of usability: contextspecific, academic, general and technical. In detail:
• Context specific usability relates to the requirements of particular disciplines and courses.
• Academic usability deals with educational issues, such as pedagogical strategy.
• General usability issues are common to most websites and include aspects such as clear navigation and accessibility for users with special needs.
• Technical usability addresses issues such as broken links and server reliability.


Definition of Mobile Learning

Usability Guidelines for Designing Mobile Learning Portals.
Daniel Su Kuen Seong. The University of Nottingham, Malaysia. Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. +603-89248138 daniel.su@nottingham.edu.my
Mobility 06, Oct. 25–27, 2006, Bangkok, Thailand.
The 3rd International Conference on Mobile Technology, Applications and Systems — Mobility 2006.

One distinct feature of mobile learning over e-Learning is mobility [6].
Hence, researchers and scholars are becoming enthusiastically in coining the term ‘mobile learning or m-learning’, such as ‘mobile learning as the point at which mobile computing and e-Learning intersect to produce an anytime, anywhere learning experience [7].
According to Nyiri [8], m-learning is fundamentally e-Learning delivered through mobile computational devices such as Palms, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), Pocket PCs, smart phone, digital cell phones, and any other handheld devices. The use of mobile devices with the wireless network technology flourishes mobile learners to get convenience, expediency and immediacy of mobile learning in appropriate time and accessing the appropriate learning contents [7].
Additionally, mobile learning is the next generation of e-Learning and important instrument for lifelong learning [49].

MOBILE LEARNING FRAMEWORK.
Ali Mostakhdemin-Hosseini. Helsinki University of Technology, konemiehentie 2, Espoo Finland.Jarno Tuimala. Innoforss Research &/ Development Center, Wanherinkatu 11 3 krs., 30100 Forssa, Finland.

Mobile learning is not learning through mobiles phones or learning over a wireless connection even though the capabilities of running multimedia features has increased in recent years. But mobile learning is the evolution of elearning, which completes the missing component of an e-learning solution. Mobile learning most suits for those mobile parties in education institutes. So, utilizing mobile devices in education is mainly considered as enhanced tools.