Factors affecting the perceived usability of the mobile web portal services: comparing simplicity with consistency

Korean IT industry has noticed innovative changes emerging along with the increased popularity of smartphones. Increase of smartphone user has extended the smartphone business arena from simple and personal applications and content to professional software for the purpose of working in- and out of the office. In this regard, developing their services to be mobile-friendly would be important business strategies for Web business companies. The mobile data traffic in Korea had been 11.2 times increased from January 2010 to January 2011 and the average traffic per user in Korea is much higher than other countries. Usage of smartphones also has been steadily increased with the diffusion of smartphones. This may indicate that the dependency level on mobile portal service in Korea would be higher and more important than in other countries. This study analyzes the influences of UI simplicity and UI consistency on user perceptions of mobile portal services using PLS methodology. Simplicity shows a greater effect on usability and credibility than does consistency although consistency also shows a significant effect. In this regard, developing mobile Web services to be simple by following the selection and concentration strategy can be an effective strategic approach. Credibility shows a greater and direct effect on user satisfaction in this study than simplicity. But it does not mean that the perceived credibility should be treated simply as more important to user satisfaction than usability. Credibility of mobile Web services would be concreted more when the perceived usability would be developed with proper UI simplicity and consistency following the suggestion of Mann and Sahni. Also satisfaction significantly turns out to mediate the effect of credibility on loyalty. This study contributes as an earlier study on how and what the mobile Web service providers should design and provide their services.     

Examining the determinants of continuance intention to use and the moderating effect of the gender and age of users of NFC mobile payments: a multi-analytical approach

The interest in m-payments through mobile phones to replace the use of cash, credit cards or cheques is rapidly increasing in our society. The present study aims to examine the situation of near field communication (NFC) m-payment services along with the determinants of users’ continuance intention. To this intent, a sample of 1840 respondents with experience in using NFC payments participated in an online survey. During the first phase of this research, an structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was used to identify the acceptance predictors of mobile payments as well as to analyse the eventual moderating effect of the gender and age of the users of this tool. The second phase focused on the neural network model’s proficiency in assessing the relative impact of the most relevant predictors stemming from the aforementioned SEM analysis. The results obtained revealed subjective norms, risk, perceived usefulness, customer brand engagement and trust as the most significant antecedents of continuance intention towards NFC payments. The study also discusses the managerial implications derived from this research while assessing and suggesting potential user behaviour-based business opportunities for service providers.

     

Examining mobile banking user adoption from the perspectives of trust and flow experience

Due to the high perceived risk and poor experience associated with using mobile banking, it is critical for service providers to build users’ trust and improve their experience. Integrating both perspectives of trust and flow experience, this research examined the factors affecting mobile banking user adoption. The results indicate that structural assurance is the main factor affecting trust, whereas ubiquity and perceived ease of use are the main factors affecting flow experience. Trust has a significant effect on flow experience, and both factors determine usage intention, which in turn affects actual usage. Thus mobile service providers need to concern both trust and flow experience to facilitate user adoption and usage of mobile banking services.     

A novel mobile device user interface with integrated social networking services

Modern mobile devices support accessing Web-based social networking services from the user interface (UI) of Web browsers, applications, and mobile widgets. While effectively accessing these services, people may find it tedious to switch between multiple user interfaces in order to be aware of the latest content. Aiming for an improved user experience, we experimented with integration of these services into mobile devices' main user interface. The integrated content is presented beyond application silos and automatically filtered to highlight the relevant elements. A mobile system called LinkedUI was developed and deployed in one lab test and one field study. Three findings emerge from these studies. Firstly, it is feasible to construct an alternative device UI that supports integration of Web content across applications and services via hyperlinking. Time, publisher (e.g., contacts), content types, and geographical locations are key dimensions for association of content. Secondly, the alternative device UI enables better usability of accessing social networking services than accessing them from individual Web sites on mobile devices. It helps people to be aware of the latest content during microbreaks. Thirdly, automatic filtering, on the basis of one user's data, is one promising approach to identifying relevant content. Given filtered content, most people using the automatic filtering approved the functionality and experienced a better sense of control that is arguably due to the reduced information volume.     

Dynamics between the trust transfer process and intention to use mobile payment services: A cross-environment perspective

Many Internet-based services have already been ported to the mobile-based environment, embracing the new services is therefore critical to deriving revenue for services providers. Based on a valence framework and trust transfer theory, we developed a trust-based customer decision-making model of the non-independent, third-party mobile payment services context. We empirically investigated whether a customer's established trust in Internet payment services is likely to influence his or her initial trust in mobile payment services. We also examined how these trust beliefs might interact with both positive and negative valence factors and affect a customer's adoption of mobile payment services. Our SEM analysis indicated that trust indeed had a substantial impact on the cross-environment relationship and, further, that trust in combination with the positive and negative valence determinants directly and indirectly influenced behavioral intention. In addition, the magnitudes of these effects on workers and students were significantly different from each other.     

移动互联网下视频时延的用户体验质量研究

随着移动互联网的发展,移动视频业务的迅速爆发,良好的用户体验质量(QoE) 成为运营商挽留用户的关键因素。从用户体验角度,建立不同时延下移动视频业务的评价量化 标准。通过情景实验模拟的方法,以平均主观意见分(mean opinion score,MOS)量表建立用户 视频体验质量的实数映射关系。针对用户对视频观看时延的有效反应进行分级研究,得到以下 结果：单次和多次的初始缓冲时延和卡顿时延对用户观看移动视频的影响并建立用户体验质量 评价等级。在短视频中出现单次时延在4 s 以上,用户会出现负面情绪;在相同延迟时长下, 单次的初始缓冲时延的用户体验质量略优于卡顿时延;对于在一定播放时长的移动视频业务中 出现多次卡顿,卡顿时延短但是间隔频繁的体验质量比卡顿时延长但是间隔时间长的体验质量 要更差。     

Examining the role of initial trust in user adoption of mobile payment services: an empirical investigation

User adoption of mobile payment (m-payment) is low compared to the adoption of traditional forms of payments. Lack of user trust has been identified as the most significant long-term barrier for the success of mobile finances systems. Motivated by this fact, we proposed and tested an initial trust theoretical model for user adoption of m-payment systems. The model not only theorizes the role of initial trust in m-payment adoption, but also identifies the facilitators and inhibitors for a user’s initial trust formation in m-payment systems. The model is empirically validated via a sample of 851 potential m-payment adopters in Australia. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used to assess the relationships of the research model. The results indicate that perceived information quality, perceived system quality, and perceived service quality as the initial trust facilitators are positively related to initial trust formation, while perceived uncertainty as the initial trust inhibitor exerts a significant negative effect on initial trust. Perceived asset specificity is found to have insignificant effect. In addition, the results show that initial trust positively affects perceived benefit and perceived convenience, and these three factors together predict usage intention. Perceived convenience of m-payment is also found to have a positive effect on perceived benefit. The findings of this study provide several important implications for m-payment adoption research and practice.     

Understanding consumers’ continuance intention towards mobile purchase: A theoretical framework and empirical study – A case of China

Although mobile purchase is convenient in the age of mobile commerce, many consumers still do not utilize mobile purchase to its full potential. From the mobile vendor’s perspective, retaining current customers and facilitating their continued purchase are crucial to create profitability and achieve a sustainable development. An understanding of the continuance intention towards mobile purchase can provide insights into mobile vendors’ marketing campaigns. Therefore, it is important to examine the determinants that impact continuance intentions of consumers for mobile purchase. Drawing upon information success model, flow theory and trust, this study proposed and empirically tested an integrated model to better understand the determinants of consumers’ continued intention to purchase on mobile sites. Empirical data from 462 users who had experience with mobile purchase were tested against the proposed research model by using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results indicated that information quality, and privacy and security concerns are the main factors affecting trust, whereas service quality is the main factor affecting flow. System quality, and privacy and security concerns affect satisfaction. Trust affects flow, which in turn affects satisfaction. These three factors together affect continued intention towards mobile purchase. The findings of this study provide several important implications for mobile commerce research and practice.     

Understanding continuance usage intention of mobile internet sites

Due to the high acquisition costs and low switching costs, retaining users and facilitating their continuance usage are crucial for mobile service providers. Integrating both perspectives of perceived utility and flow experience, this research identifies the factors affecting continuance usage intention of mobile internet sites. Data were collected through a survey, and data analysis was then conducted with structural equation modeling. The results indicated that system quality and information quality affect perceived usefulness, satisfaction and flow. And these three factors determine continuance usage intention. Among them, flow has the largest effect on continuance usage intention. The results imply that service providers need to improve users’ experience in order to facilitate their continuance usage of mobile internet sites.     

Studying the effect of perceived hedonic mobile device quality on user experience evaluations of mobile applications

When people interact with digital artefacts they perceive their pragmatic and hedonic qualities. In the case of interacting with mobile devices and applications, users seek utility as they try to satisfy certain needs, but at the same time they have certain feelings and emotions when, for example, they feel attached to their personal phone and/or trust its brand. Due to this strong relation between users and mobile devices a significant problem occurs when researchers want to evaluate the user experience of a mobile application in laboratory settings: the selection of an appropriate mobile device. Towards this end, this paper aims to unveil the effect of perceived hedonic quality of a mobile device on the user experience evaluation results of an application. Our results show that the perceived hedonic quality of a mobile device significantly affected the perceived pragmatic quality of the application, but not the hedonic one.     

Improving TCP performance in heterogeneous mobile environments by exploiting the explicit cooperation between server and mobile host

In recent years, many different kinds of wireless access networks have been deployed and become inseparable parts of the Internet. But TCP, the most widely used transport protocol of the Internet, was designed for stationery hosts. It faces severe challenges when user moves around in these networks and handoff occurs frequently. In this paper, we investigate the potential benefits of bringing explicit cooperation between TCP server and mobile host.For this purpose, TCP HandOff (TCP-HO), a practical end-to-end mechanism, is designed for improving TCP performance in heterogeneous mobile environments. TCP-HO assumes that a mobile host is able to detect the completion of handoff immediately and has a coarse estimation of new wireless link’s bandwidth. When a mobile host detects handoff completion, it will immediately notify the server through two duplicate ACKs, whose TCP option also carries the bandwidth of new wireless link. After receiving this notification, the server begins to transmit immediately and keeps updating ssthresh according to the bandwidth from mobile host and its new RTT samples. This update will end after four RTT samples or after congestion is detected.TCP-HO has been implemented in FreeBSD 5.4. Experimental results indicate that in heterogeneous mobile environments, TCP-HO can improve TCP performance a lot without adversely affecting cross traffic even when mobile host only has a coarse estimation of new wireless link’s bandwidth. Considering that more and more users are accessing the Internet through heterogeneous wireless networks and mobile host could have a coarse estimation of wireless link’s bandwidth, it should be worthwhile to change both server and mobile host for improving TCP performance.     

Determinants of accepting wireless mobile data services in China

Data services via wireless networks and mobile devices have experienced rapid growth worldwide. We investigated the factors influencing adoption of wireless mobile data services (WMDS) in China and tested our model for explaining adoption intentions there. We argued that individuals form their intention to adopt WMDS under the influence of wireless mobile technology, the social environment, personal innovativeness of IT, trust awareness, and the facilitating conditions. We examined the simultaneous effects of these five influences on beliefs in the context of wireless Internet data services via mobile phones. Survey data were collected from 1432 participants in several metro cities across China. The findings suggest that WMDS adoption intention in China is determined by consumers’ perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of WMDS. Theoretical and practical implications are included in our paper.     

一种手机浏览器的加速引擎设计与实现

提出一种手机浏览器加速引擎,目的是为了解决高可信网络环境中如何更好地在移动终端推广数字内容服务。通过对浏览器客户端请求站点的预处理,以及对页面无效数据的过滤和有效数据的压缩,同时传输层采用混合协议的方式来提高用户的浏览体验,提高页面访问速度,并尽可能降低服务器成本,另外该引擎通过反馈机制来调节系统的访问效率,以使得系统的性能达到最优。     

TruBeRepec: a trust-behavior-based reputation and recommender system for mobile applications

Mobile applications are software packages that can be installed and executed in a mobile device. Which mobile application is trustworthy for a user to purchase, download, install, execute or recommend becomes a crucial issue that impacts its final success. This paper proposes TruBeRepec, a trust-behavior-based reputation and recommender system for mobile applications. We explore a model of trust behavior for mobile applications based on the result of a large-scale user survey. We further develop a number of algorithms that are used to evaluate individual user’s trust in a mobile application through trust behavior observation, generate the application’s reputation by aggregating individual trust and provide application recommendations based on the correlation of trust behaviors. We show the practical significance of TruBeRepec through simulations and analysis with regard to effectiveness, robustness, and usability, as well as privacy.     

Understanding the effect of flow on user adoption of mobile games

Mobile games as an emerging service have not received wide adoption among users; especially, presenting a compelling experience to users may be crucial to their usage. Drawing on the flow theory, this research identified the factors affecting user adoption of mobile games. The results indicated that perceived ease of use, connection quality and content quality affect flow. Among them, content quality has the largest effect. Flow, social influence and usage cost determine usage intention. The results imply that service providers need to improve users’ experience in order to facilitate their adoption and usage of mobile games.     

Exploring the logic of mobile search

After more than a decade of development work and hopes, the usage of mobile Internet has finally taken off. Now, we are witnessing the first signs of evidence of what might become the explosion of mobile content and applications that will be shaping the (mobile) Internet of the future. Similar to the wired Internet, search will become very relevant for the usage of mobile Internet. Current research on mobile search has applied a limited set of methodologies and has also generated a narrow outcome of meaningful results. This article covers new ground, exploring the use and visions of mobile search with a users' interview-based qualitative study. Its main conclusion builds upon the hypothesis that mobile search is sensitive to a mobile logic different than today's one. First, (advanced) users ask for accessing with their mobile devices the entire Internet, rather than subsections of it. Second, success is based on new added-value applications that exploit unique mobile functionalities. The authors interpret that such mobile logic involves fundamentally the use of personalised and context-based services.     

Role of transfer-based and performance-based cues on initial trust in mobile shopping services: a cross-environment perspective

Building initial trust with consumers is critical for e-retailers. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, this study examines the factors affecting initial trust in mobile shopping services by focusing on transfer-based and performance-based trust building mechanisms in a web-mobile services extension context. A developed research model reflecting the above two mechanisms is empirically tested on data collected from 192 undergraduate students who were web-shopping users of a famous business-to-consumer retailer in China. The results indicate that transfer-based cues including trust in web shopping services and functional consistency, in combination with performance-based cues including mobile information quality and mobile service quality, significantly affect initial trust in mobile shopping services. In addition, mobile information quality had a stronger, while mobile service quality had a weaker impact on initial trust in mobile shopping services when the consumer had a low level of self-efficacy for change. However, the moderation effects of user involvement were not significant.     

Understanding Continuance Intention of Mobile Payment Services: An Empirical Study

Research on continued use of mobile payment services is scarce. To address part of this research gap, we examine a research model, derived from IT continuance, risk-trust, and affect-cognition literature. The results show that user satisfaction with mobile payment services has a substantive positive impact on continuance intention with such services; the disconfirmation of preadoption perceived usefulness about mobile payment services positively impacts user satisfaction and postadoption perceived usefulness; the disconfirmation of preadoption perceived risk about mobile payment services negatively impacts user satisfaction and positively impacts postadoption perceived risk; postadoption perceived usefulness is positively associated with continuance intention; user satisfaction positively impacts both institution-based trust in mobile payment technologies and trust beliefs in service providers; institution-based trust shows a positive impact on postadoption perceived usefulness and a negative impact on postadoption perceived risk.     

无线Internet的业务质量及其改进

在移动网络中,移动用户对Internet的访问,具有与通常的外部Internet网络不同的特点。移动用户发出的对信息内容的请求(例如询问前方交通情况和路线),以及无线Internet信息提供商主动向移动用户发出的信息(例如移动用户附近的商品信息广告),与移动用户的位置、移动状态(方向、速度)和个人情况(userprofile)等有关。因此,要建立恰当的无线Internet流量模型和实现QoS(业务质量)控制,需要考虑用户的移动特性和在不同移动状态下访问Internet的概率分布。该文将建立一个新的定量分析模型,用半马尔可夫过程和一般的状态空间来描述移动用户的行为;并基于该移动模型,建立相应的移动用户对信息内容的访问模型、描述移动用户请求的到达过程;进而得到无线Internet业务质量参数的估计,即无线Internet对移动用户请求的平均响应时间、对无线侧和有线侧传输带宽的需求等;利用这些结果,可以实现无线资源的动态分配和允入控制。该文还将分析无线代理网关的性能、缓存容量需求,并给出改善平均响应时间的可行方案。最后用计算机模拟对提出的理论分析进行验证。     

Uncovering the dual influence processes for click-through intention in the mobile social platform: An elaboration likelihood model perspective

The burgeoning growth of mobile social platforms has gained the attention of advertisers, and the way how to stimulate users’ click-through intention in the virtual social community is becoming a research focus of scholars. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study develops a theoretical framework to examine the mediation effects of cognitive vs. affective trust on the relationship between dual routes (central route vs. peripheral route) and users’ click-through intention in the context of mobile social platforms. Particularly, users’ prior product experience is incorporated in the research model to examine its moderating effect on the influence processes. A scenario-based survey is conducted in China, and the partial least square method is used to analyze the data. Empirical results suggest that perceived content personalization is positively associated with cognitive trust, and its influence is stronger for experienced users with the recommended product. Social recommendation is positively associated with affective trust, and its impact is higher for users without prior product experience. Advertiser reputation is positively associated with both cognitive trust and affective trust, and its effect on cognitive trust is stronger for users without prior product experience, while its impact on affective trust is higher for users with prior product experience. Moreover, cognitive trust is positively associated with affective trust, and the two trust mechanisms have positive influences on click-through intention toward the recommended product. We discuss theoretical and practical implications in the final section.