Developing Elements of User Experience for Mobile Phones and Services: Survey,Interview, and Observation Approaches

The term user experience (UX) encompasses the concepts of usability and affective engineering. However, UX has not been defined clearly. In this study, a literature survey, user interview and indirect observation were conducted to develop definitions of UX and its elements. A literature survey investigated 127 articles that were considered to be helpful to define the concept of UX. An in‐depth interview targeted 14 hands‐on workers in the Korean mobile phone industry. An indirect observation captured daily experiences of eight end‐users with mobile phones. This study collected various views on UX from academia, industry, and end‐users using these three approaches. As a result, this article proposes definitions of UX and its elements: usability, affect, and user value. These results are expected to help design products or services with greater levels of UX. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This article was published online on 20 October 2011. An error was subsequently identified. This notice is included in the online and print versions to indicate that both have been corrected 13 June 2013.     

Product attributes and user experience design: how to convey product information through user-centered service

The user experience (UX) is a critical issue in both the product design and service sector. Ensuring that customers can easily understand a product or service and thus ensuring higher satisfaction with the customer–product (service) interaction process is essential for survival among competitive industries. However, few studies have attempted to integrate all relevant factors into a comprehensive model of UX. The present study addresses this need by proposing a conceptual UX interaction model that incorporates the characteristics of usability and user interaction level based on quality of experience. A method to apply the model and the steps to implement the data collection and analysis are also proposed. The UX interaction model requires a systematic approach to: (1) decompose the product or service characteristics during a UX interaction process; (2) determine typology of UX items of each characteristic; and (3) select appropriate and feasible strategies to improve these UX items. A quantitative survey for mobile phone users was developed to investigate differences among types of UX and product characteristics. This study provides valuable empirical evidence on the UX interaction model for particular industries where superior quality service experiences are to be achieved.     

How User Experience Changes over Time: A Case Study of Social Network Services

While interacting with a product or a service, people have diverse experiences, which constitute user experience (UX). In this study, the hierarchical dimensions of UX were considered, including overall UX, its elements (usability, affect, and user value) and their subelements. To determine how UX changes over time, the temporal changes of the influence of each element and subelement were analyzed. Twenty subjects participated in a longitudinal experiment by using a social network service (SNS). The most important element of UX changed from usability to user value after one week of use. These results suggest that adoption of an SNS occurs in two phases: a phase of affected by usability and a phase affected by user value. Identification of these phases and the systematic approach used in the study are expected to contribute to design and evaluation of new SNSs and other products and services.     

A psychometric user experience model based on fuzzy measure approaches

User experience (UX) is considered a key quality of interactive products in today’s competitive mass markets and is of growing interest in both academia and industry. UX concerns the encounters a user has while interacting with products, systems, and services. It is ubiquitous, omnipresent, and dynamic in nature, referring to the non-quantifiable, subjective, affective-based, and context-dependent processes. UX is difficult for researchers to objectively and uniformly measure as it involves complex human perceptual interpretations of experiential responses with a certain degree of uncertainty, imprecision, and vagueness. Based on the user experience questionnaire (UEQ), this paper presents a psychometric UX model using fuzzy measure approaches, the purpose of which is to develop a metric for quantitative assessment of certain product UXs through a user experience index (UXI). This model enables researchers to understand users’ perceptions of the interactions that constitute qualities of using a specific product. An empirical study concerning the episodic UX measures of using a set of touch mice was conducted to verify the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed UX model. The theoretical and practical implications of the UX model are also discussed.     

Can eye-tracking data be measured to assess product design?: Visual attention mechanism should be considered

Eye tracking probes user's perception of real-time reaction to products, while conventional methods (i.e. interviews, focus group, questionnaires and so on) have generally failed because they depend on users' willingness and competency to describe how they feel when they are exposed to a product. Two tasks were designed to explore the indexes of eye movement that can reflect user experience of product, and analyse the attention captured by product attributes and goal-oriented. In task one, participants just browsed two smart phone pictures and evaluated the whole user experience. Binary choices were used in task two to ask participants to select the smart phone picture with higher user experience and then click the mouse. The results showed that in the browsing task, participants had shorter time to first fixation for the smart phone picture with higher level of user experience than the lower. And pupil dilated significantly when participants browse smart phone picture with lower level of user experience. In goal-oriented task, participants' attentions were dominated by visual perception of task driven, mainly reflected on longer fixation time and larger pupil diameter when looking at the smart phone with higher level of user experience. These results support the notion that we cannot assess product design just by several eye-movement indexes without considering the effects of visual attention mechanism.Relevance to industryThe appearance of product plays an important role to attract user's attention and stimulate their intention to experience. And vision is the main channel for users to obtain product information. Hence a thorough research on the inherent mechanism of vision perception can provide technical support for product designers, which in turn can attract more consumers to experience the product, even buy it. Moreover, the seller can find out the real buyers and predict their desired products by tracking user's eyes.     

Developing and Verifying a Questionnaire for Evaluating User Value of a Mobile Device

User experience has become a major issue lately with user value as one of its key elements. This study proposes a method to evaluate user value using a questionnaire specialized for a mobile device such as smartphones. The questionnaire was developed considering elements of user value, product features, and context of use. Then, a case study with hundreds of participants was conducted via the Internet to verify and screen out questionnaire items in terms of reliability and validity. Finally, a total of 16 questionnaire items were selected for evaluating elements of user value, consisting of self‐satisfaction, pleasure, sociability, customer need, and attachment. The results of this study are expected to help understand potential users and select design alternatives.     

Examining mobile instant messaging user loyalty from the perspectives of network externalities and flow experience

Due to the intense competition and low switching cost, building user loyalty is critical for mobile instant messaging (IM) service providers. Integrating both perspectives of network externalities and flow experience, this research identified the factors affecting mobile IM user loyalty. Network externalities include referent network size and perceived complementarity. Flow experience includes perceived enjoyment and attention focus. We conducted data analysis with structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that both network externalities and flow experience significantly affect perceived usefulness and satisfaction, further determining user loyalty. Thus mobile service providers need to improve their IM platforms, and deliver positive network externalities and good usage experience to users. Then they can facilitate users’ loyalty.     

基于事件的虚拟现实用户体验评估方法研究

近年来,随着虚拟现实(Virtual Reality,VR)技术的逐渐成熟,我国VR产业处于高速增长的态势。虽然VR的发展为内容设计提供了许多新的可能性,但由于VR应用的设计不成熟,VR行业的从业者们仍面临着严峻的挑战,VR中的设计仍需要通过用户使用来验证是否可行。因此,用户体验(User Experience,UX)研究对于成功设计VR软件至关重要。同时,随着用户对内容质量要求的提高,VR内容是否有足够的吸引力将在很大程度上影响用户体验,决定了用户是否会进行更进一步的VR体验。因此,如何评估VR用户体验并找到影响用户体验的内容对于提高用户体验和用户黏性至关重要。目前,对VR的研究集中在硬件和软件的改善上,对内容设计的关注较少,对用户体验的评价也没有统一且明确的标准。文中尝试找出用户体验和用户特性以及VR内容之间的关联。首先,定义了4种类型的VR交互事件,并设计了一份问卷来收集测试者的用户特性及其主观评价。其次,将80名测试者分成两组,在固定的时间内体验两种类型的VR产品,在实验过程中,测试者的客观生理数据与参与实验的整个过程都被记录下来。最后,采用统计学方法和改进的Prism算法,找出了用户特性、游戏交互事件类型与用户体验之间的相关性。文中对VR用户体验规范化评估进行了初步尝试,实验结果可以为VR内容设计人员和开发人员提供参考。     

Diversified users’ satisfaction with advanced mobile phone features

Mobile phones are widely used all over the world, and with their increasing number of value-added features, they are becoming far more than a mere mobile voice communication device. Rather, they provide a powerful platform for accessing information universally. This paper reports a study which scrutinized users’ preference levels with five new mobile phone design features facilitating universal information access through mobile phones: camera, colour screen, voice-activated dialling, Internet browsing, and wireless connectivity (e.g. Bluetooth, infrared, etc.). The survey study involved college students and investigated the degree to which each of the above features impacts the users’ overall satisfaction and enhances the potential of mobile phones to contribute to different aspects of universal access. Our results show that colour screen, voice-activated dialling, and Internet browsing feature can strongly predict users’ satisfaction level, and their preference levels together account for 22.7% of the variance of the users’ overall satisfaction. Users’ satisfaction levels are significantly different between models with colour screen feature and those without, and models with Internet browsing features and those without. Since mobile phone design needs to accommodate the needs and preferences of diversified user groups, the performed study also investigated the difference in users’ preference levels of the five new features for different ethnic groups, and difference in mobile phone owned by different genders. The result indicates that Asian female users in the U.S. market have higher preference level on colour screen feature than Caucasian female users. Significantly higher percentage of male users own phones with camera, Internet browsing, and wireless connectivity features than female users. The empirical study reported in this paper provides a comprehensive picture of how new design features can enhance the mobile phone as a universal access device, and what impact they have brought about. It can also help manufacturers adopt a universal design perspective in view of the differences in preference levels of users with different ethnicity and genders.     

The impact of a computerized conferencing system on the productivity of scientific research communities

Researchers and practitioners in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) have for a while been embracing the concepts of user and consumer experience as well as emotions in design, encouraging the industry to emphasise hedonic and symbolic qualities of products and services, over and beyond their utilitarian characteristics. However, the idea that mobile phone users, for instance, seek increasingly experience-rich, personalised products can not be taken for granted. Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the degree to which users really share designers' increasingly socio-emotional stances. The presented longitudinal study investigated users' mobile phone-related product meaning, particularly its development from 2004 to 2008. Product meaning was conceptualised in terms of an affective-cognizant choice mode dimension complemented by items capturing utilitarian, hedonic, and symbolic facets of the construct. The findings provide grounds for raising an important discussion about a possible pragmatic shift in product meaning, away from emotional and holistic, towards piecemeal and rational valuation. This would obviously challenge current design maxims. Linking these results to users' personality and mobile phone ownership history, subgroups with notably dissimilar product meaning development could be distinguished mainly with regard to levels of neuroticism, extraversion and brand loyalty – however, not gender.     

Using sketches and storyboards to assess impact of age difference in user experience

We compared two versions of a touch-screen digital thermostat using a framework encompassing several user experience (UX) characteristics, and here describe how the implementation of certain design factors (specialists, praises, tooltips and increased interactivity) was done on mixed-fidelity prototypes of the user interface. We illustrate how the experimental comparison, involving 20 university students and 20 older adults, revealed important differences in UX, including perceived ease of use, behavioral intentions, enjoyment, quality, satisfaction, trust and usability, measured mainly through established questionnaires.Analysis revealed that using that kind of artifacts is a very cost effective way to elicit interesting and useful results; many UX variables are significantly affected by design factors and by age differences, as expected; effects of design factors go well beyond usability and therefore could not be caught by running an investigation focused only on usability.Age difference matters: older adults do not respond to addition of specialists, praises and tooltips as younger users do. We argue that potential benefits of these design choices are outweigh by the increase in complexity of the user interface.From a methodological viewpoint we suggest using a particular array of UX characteristics and metrics when testing mixed-fidelity prototypes. Not all the metrics that we adopted were equally useful, and in particular perceived usability, subjective mental effort, and emotions did not help us highlighting differences.     

Usability and user experience of medical devices: An overview of the current state,analysis methodologies,and future challenges

Improvements to the reliability and safety of medical devices are vital for healthcare systems. It is necessary to consider the user experience (UX) of patients and healthcare professionals at all the development stages of medical devices. Ergonomic design principles can also reduce the cost of medical device production. This study is a multilateral analytical literature review of UX and usability issues in healthcare and medical device design. The total number of literature sources presented is n = 88. The literature sources are classified according to the difference between UX and usability for various target products and services, including healthcare. The literature is reviewed with a focus on human-oriented aspects. This includes medical technology and device design, which are dependent on the user type, medical device scope, and area of use. A review of key medical device standards and regulation documents is presented. The main analysis methodologies for the UX and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The future challenges in healthcare and medical ergonomics are briefly highlighted. Above all, this study tried to examine the difference between usability and UX of general products and those of medical devices through the review of existing literature. Even standards do not reflect this well and need to be considered based on further research in academia and industry.Relevance to industryThe obtained results will help medical-device designers and healthcare professionals understand the main medical-research trends and improve the design process. Additionally, they will be helpful for increasing the satisfaction level among medical-device users and reducing user risks.     

Does network quality matter? A field study of mobile user satisfaction

Mobile quality of experience and user satisfaction are growing research topics. However, the relationship between a user’s satisfaction with network quality and the networks real performance in the field remains unexplored.This paper is the first to study both network and non-network predictors of user satisfaction in the wild. We report findings from a large sample (2224 users over 12 months) combining both questionnaires and network measurements. We found that minimum download goodput and device type predict satisfaction with network availability. Whereas for network speed, only download factors predicted satisfaction. We observe that users integrate over many measurements and exhibit a known peak-end effect in their ratings. These results can inform modeling efforts in quality of experience and user satisfaction.     

Measuring the efficiency of customer satisfaction and loyalty for mobile phone brands with DEA

The concept of customer satisfaction and loyalty (CS&L) has attracted much attention in recent years. A key motivation for the fast growing emphasis on CS&L can be attributed to the fact that higher customer satisfaction and loyalty can lead to stronger competitive position resulting in larger market share and profitability. Using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, in this study we analyzed and compared CS&L efficiency for mobile phone brands in an emerging telecommunication market, Turkey. The constructs of European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model are treated and used as input and output indicators of our DEA model. Drawing on the perceptual responses of 251 mobile phone users, the DEA models reveal that from the top six mobile phone brands in Turkey, Nokia features as the most efficient brand followed by LG and Sonny Ericsson in terms of CS&L efficiency, while Motorola, Samsung and Panasonic rank as the least efficient brands.     

A method for product form design of integrating interactive genetic algorithm with the interval hesitation time and user satisfaction

Due to the continuous release of new products, manufacturers are paying attention to customer-oriented design of products that meet user needs to minimize the risk of their products being rejected by the market. Due to the ambiguity of user cognition, it is difficult to accurately obtain the user's preference for individual productions. To respond to the challenge, we propose an engineering scientific research method of interactive genetic algorithm with the interval arithmetic based on hesitation and fuzzy kano model(FKM) to explore the emotional needs of users for product forms and drive product modeling evolution design. Through expert interviews, the morphological characteristics and perceptual images factors of the products attracting users are investigated. In order to identify the user's satisfaction relationship with the perceptual images, we use FKM to analyze the product image style that meets the user's kansei needs accurately and selects 5 factors which is attractive attributes. Meanwhile, we attempt to transform this 5 factors into evaluation carrier to guide the evolution direction of product styling in HIIF-IGA, and then optimized four electric bikes with scores over 8.8 so that it could realize user demand-driven product evolution design. To handle users' ambiguity, the FAHP method is used to quantify the user's emotional imagery criterion and create a product evolution design system platform, which can automatically generate product styling design scheme in line with user preferences. This experimental results show that the proposed method can help enterprises effectively improve customer satisfaction and reduce the cost and time of product development.     

Development of a web-based survey system for evaluating affective satisfaction

The concept of affective satisfaction is used to measure subjective feelings or impressions toward a product and to provide designers with knowledge about how well users are affectively satisfied. Numerous studies of affective satisfaction toward mobile devices have been conducted in laboratory environments. However, evaluating affective satisfaction whenever a new product is designed can be expensive. Therefore, this study proposes a method to develop a web-based survey system for evaluating affective satisfaction. A case study evaluating the affective satisfaction of thirty mobile phones was conducted by more than three hundred participants. The multiple linear regression technique was applied to build the relationship models between affective satisfaction and design features of the mobile phones. The proposed method can be used for a guideline to evaluate the affective satisfaction over the internet. Moreover, designers can use this method in product families other than mobile phones.

Relevance to industry

The results of this study can be used to evaluate affective satisfaction of consumer electronic products efficiently. Moreover, designers can get feedback on their prototypes of products through analyzing the evaluation results.     

A Design Process for a Customer Journey Map: A Case Study on Mobile Services

A customer journey map (CJM) is a widely used tool to represent user experience with a service. Although numerous companies have used this tool to improve existing services or to develop new services, the maps are neither consistent nor mutually compatible because no clear design process for a CJM has been presented. This study aimed to develop a design process and rule sets for a CJM based on a human factors approach. The 10‐step process and the rule sets were built on case studies of 25 categories of mobile services. Large‐scale case studies were conducted with mobile service providers and combined with the result of a user diary method that collected users’ daily activities and the difficulties that the user perceived when performing a task. We suggested various methods for using the CJM to generate new service opportunities. The proposed design process and the way for opportunity discovery can help service designers to develop unified CJMs and to identify innovative service ideas.     

Optimization of user experience in mobile application design by using a fuzzy analytic-network-process-based Taguchi method

Mobile application (app) design is an expanding research area, with user experience (UX) as its core. UX encompasses all aspects of human–computer interaction, and thus the optimization of UX has multiple objectives. Quality characteristics related to UX are subjective and even subconscious; moreover, there exists interdependence among UX quality characteristics. However, very little attention has been focused on these issues when optimizing UX based on multiple objectives. In this paper, a fuzzy analytic network process (ANP)-based Taguchi method is proposed for optimizing UX in mobile app design. First, design patterns and UX quality characteristics are determined. Subsequently, a Taguchi experiment is designed and carried out, and then signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios are calculated. A fuzzy ANP is adopted to derive the preference weights for the UX quality characteristics. Based on these weights, the S/N ratios are converted into a multiperformance characteristic index (MPCI) by using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Finally, according to the MPCI, the significant design patterns are identified by using the analysis of variance, and the optimal design is obtained by using the response table and response graph. A mobile health app design was presented to illustrate the proposed approach. The results suggest that the proposed approach can effectively manage the interdependence among the subjective and even subconscious UX quality characteristics in the optimization process, and be used as a universal robust design approach to optimize UX in mobile app design.     

Collecting and Sharing Location-based Content on Mobile Phones in a Zoo Visitor Experience

The augmentation of visitor experiences with location-based technologies has been available for some time. Through in-depth studies of users during these experiences the field is building a rich picture of user behaviour in relation to certain location-based technologies. However, little work has explored the use of mobile camera phones and 2D barcodes on situated signs and their properties as a way of delivering such augmented visitor experiences. In this paper we present a study of people engaged in such a location-based experience at London zoo in which they use mobile camera phones to read 2D barcodes on signs at the animal enclosures in order to access related content. Through the fieldwork we highlight the social and collaborative aspects of the experience and how particular characteristics of the mobile phone and barcode technology shape these behaviours. The paper also highlights some of the non-instrumental aspects of the location-based experience, in particular in relation to the importance of collecting location-based content. We explore the social aspects of collecting as well as certain competitive elements it introduces into people’s behaviour. This creates an interesting tension in that aspects of the application encourage cooperation and sharing among the visitors whereas others encourage competition. In the course of presenting the fieldwork, we explore this tension further.     

Book Review

In this experiment, older and younger novice mobile phone users were examined when using handsets of different complexity. The independent variables were user age (young: 20 – 35 years; old: 50 – 64 years) and cognitive complexity of two mobile phones (Nokia 3210; Siemens C35i). The cognitive complexity of the phones was defined by the number of production rules applied when processing the four experimental tasks. Dependent variables were effectiveness and efficiency as taken from user protocols and the reported ease of use. The less complex phone (Nokia) performed significantly better than the complex one (Siemens). However, the benefit from the lower complexity was much larger than theoretically predicted. Thus, defining cognitive complexity of technical devices by the number of production rules does not account for the real difficulties which users experience. Older users had a lower navigation performance than younger users, however their performance matched younger users' when using mobiles with low complexity.