Measuring Visibility and Usability Features in Mobile Application

Interface Design

Wadhah Ahmed Muthanna Abdullah1,* Aygul Z. Ibatova2

1 Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

2 Tyumen Industrial University, Russia

Received: September 30, 2025 Revised: November 11, 2025 Accepted: December 18, 2025 ⋆ Corresponding author

ABSTRACT

Mobile application usability is often discussed after deployment through user reviews or task testing, but many visible

design problems can be measured earlier from the interface itself. This paper presents a feature-based framework for

quantifying mobile interface visibility, usability, and accessibility risk from screen-level design properties. The study

defines a Mobile Interface Visibility–Usability Quality score using observable measures such as primary-action

salience, visual density, tap-target adequacy, label completeness, contrast proxy, navigation depth, whitespace,

and clutter. The analysis uses a structured extract following public Rico and UICrit-style mobile UI data, where

screenshots, hierarchy information, and designer critique concepts support data-driven assessment. The results show

that usability quality is not determined by a single visual property. Screens with strong contrast may still be difficult

to use if feature discoverability is weak, and screens with many functions may remain usable when hierarchy and

labels are clear. The paper contributes a measurement protocol, design-risk taxonomy, empirical score analysis, and

practical remediation loop for mobile app teams seeking objective evidence before user-facing release.

Keywords: Mobile application design User interface visibility Usability measurement Accessibility Data-driven UI

evaluation

1. INTRODUCTION

Mobile applications are now the primary interface through

which many people access banking, healthcare, learning,

shopping, travel, entertainment, and public services. Their usability

depends not only on whether functions exist, but also

on whether the user can see them, understand their purpose,

and activate them without excessive cognitive or motor effort.

A feature that is technically available but visually hidden,

poorly labelled, or placed in a crowded region can behave

like an absent feature from the user’s perspective.

This paper focuses on the measurable interface layer of mobile

usability. Rather than treating usability only as a post-hoc

survey outcome, the study asks how much can be inferred

directly from screen structure and visible design properties.

The central claim is that design teams need a practical measurement

system that identifies usability risk before expensive

user testing or public release. Such a system does not replace

user studies; it provides an early warning layer that tells

designers which screens deserve closer inspection and why.

The paper is motivated by recent growth in data-driven UI

assessment. Rico provides a large repository of mobile app

screens and design structure, while UICrit and UIClip show

that mobile UI quality can be analysed using screenshot-level

features, critiques, and machine-learning models [1–3]. Accessibility

and mobile usability studies further show that visibility,

target size, navigation clarity, cognitive load, and label

quality remain recurring barriers [4–8]. These works motivate