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Mobile language learning (MLL) is an emerging field of research, and many MLL applications have been developed over the years. In this paper, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to establish a body of knowledge on the development of MLL applications. The SLR analyzed forty seven papers from seven different digital libraries reporting on the development of MLL applications. The objective was to consolidate information on; (i) requirements elicitation, (ii) design and implementation, and (iii) evaluation processes. The results highlighted literature reviews and interviews as the main source for gathering requirements, while app development technologies, speech technology, and gamification technology are widely used in the design and implementation process. Usability testing is the most commonly used evaluation method. Finally, future work is recommended to scientifically strengthen the field.

Higher education institutes are continuously exploiting technology to improve the delivery of courses. This paper reviews the use of mobile learning applications in higher education institutes to; i) identify publication trends, ii) types of mobile learning applications used, and iii) categorize the research papers published. The applied method is the Systematic Mapping Study. A Systematic mapping study was conducted using 103 papers retrieved from six different databases. The findings of this mapping study showed an increased research interest in the field and a variety of mobile learning applications used (learning management, vodcast and podcast, game-based learning, collaborative learning, and language learning applications). The published studies are mainly solution-oriented that focus on the use of mobile learning applications. The results were helpful to position future research activities.

Heuristic evaluation is a fast and cheap method that can be used to identify usability flaws in mobile learning applications. In this paper, we proposed a framework for heuristic evaluation of mobile learning applications to ensure that best practices are followed, hence saving time and effort in conducting a heuristic evaluation. Ten case studies on heuristic evaluation of mobile learning applications were selected, and an analysis was conducted to identify the best practices that were later incorporated into a framework. The framework was utilized to conduct heuristic evaluation to show the feasibility of our approach. The results indicate that it provides clear guidance, and it's fast and easy to conduct heuristic evaluation.

Mobile learning application developers have to overcome inherent limitations imposed by mobile devices in order to produce usable applications. There are usability guidelines available to assist in the design process but with technological improvements, these guidelines should be updated and extended. In this research, we proposed an updated usability guideline to assist in the design process of mobile learning applications. A systematic analysis of seventeen usability studies on mobile learning application was conducted, listed usability problems were extracted and analyzed to formulate new usability guidelines and subsequently the guidelines were updated. The validation results indicate that the updated guideline helps to achieve a higher level of usability as compared to previous guidelines.

Heuristic evaluation is a fast and easy way to detect usability problems. Nielsen (1994) proposed ten heuristics that are being widely used to conduct heuristic evaluation. Utilizing these heuristics for mobile learning applications is not very effective because they are generic and were not developed taking mobile devices into consideration. In this research new heuristics were developed to extend Nielsen (1994) heuristics to support heuristic evaluation of mobile learning applications. Sixteen usability studies on mobile learning applications were retrieved from the literature, the listed usability problems were analyzed and three new heuristics were developed. The validation results indicate that using newly developed heuristics allow evaluators to detect more usability problems while evaluating mobile learning applications.

Usability guideline is a well-established topic of study, with numerous guidelines developed over the years. There is a lack of study that provides a comprehensive overview of the development of usability guidelines. Motivated by this shortcoming, a systematic review was conducted to establish a body of knowledge on the development of usability guidelines to assist researchers working in the field. The systematic review was conducted by analyzing forty-three (43) research papers selected from seven (7) digital libraries and assessed to identify; the current state of research, specific domains, data collection techniques, development methods, and validation techniques. The results showed an increasing research trend in the development of usability guidelines. The development of usability guidelines was undertaken in many different domains, where the medical domain recorded the highest number of activities. Literature survey is the dominant data collection technique for developing usability guidelines, while usability evaluation is the most common technique for validating newly developed guidelines. The findings concluded that there is a lack of standardization for developing, implementing, and evaluating usability guidelines. Future work can be carried out to establish a methodology for developing and implementing usability guidelines. Moreover, a tool can also be built using machine learning to develop usability guidelines automatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]