Mobile crowdsourcing: four experiments on platforms and tasks

• DOI: 10.1007/s10619-014-7162-x
• Publication Date: 2014-10-15T04:24:20Z
• Authors: Vincenzo Della Mea; Eddy Maddalena; Stefano Mizzaro
• Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Crowdsourcing software development

We study whether the tasks currently proposed on crowdsourcing platforms are adequate to mobile devices. We aim at understanding both (i) which crowdsourcing platforms, among the existing ones, are more adequate to mobile devices, and (ii) which kinds of tasks are more adequate to mobile devices. Results of four diversified experiments (three user studies and one heuristic evaluation) hint that: some crowdsourcing platforms seem more adequate to mobile devices than others; some inadequacy issues seem rather superficial and can be resolved by a better task design; some kinds of tasks are more adequate than others; there might be some unexpected opportunities with mobile devices; and spam on the requester side should be taken into account.