The roles of media capabilities of smartphone-based SNS in developing social capital

Smartphone-based social networking service (SNS) is widely used as a key social platform that promotes users to build and maintain interpersonal relationships. However, little is known about the main characteristics of smartphone-based SNS that strengthen social relationships. By combining studies of mediated-communication namely, media richness and social presence with the social capital theory, this study proposes that the advanced media capabilities of smartphone-based SNS enable users to develop bridging and bonding social capital. Moreover, the study suggests that advanced media richness increases social presence referring to the feeling of being connected with others in virtual environments. As a key outcome of social capital in the context of smartphone-based SNS use, user satisfaction is considered. The results indicate that first, media richness and social presence, which represent media capabilities of smartphone-based SNS, greatly increase bridging and bonding social capital. Second, media richness enhances social presence in the context of smartphone-based SNS use. Finally, bridging and bonding social capital are key determinants of user satisfaction with smartphone-based SNS. Discussion and implications on the results are presented.     

Understanding User Satisfaction With Instant Messaging: An Empirical Survey Study

The current article examines user satisfaction with instant messaging in building and maintaining social relationships with friends, family members, and others. The research model integrates motivation theory with media capacity theories to explain how the attributes of media capacity (e.g., social presence and media richness) and users' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations toward using instant messaging influence user satisfaction. Data were collected from a sample of 247 Chinese university students via an online survey. The results suggest that perceived enjoyment, perceived social presence, and perceived usefulness are key to user satisfaction. Perceived social presence and perceived media richness are positively associated with perceived enjoyment. It was also found that perceived enjoyment, perceived social presence, and perceived media richness have significant effects on perceived usefulness. Of interest, perceived enjoyment and perceived social presence have stronger effects on user satisfaction than perceived usefulness.     

Using social media to enrich information systems field trip experiences: Students’ satisfaction and continuance intentions

A well-designed field trip can promote active learning and reinforce classroom materials. Few studies have examined the potential for social media to enhance IS field trip experiences by promoting active and collaborative learning. One major barrier to the exploitation of this potential is the lack of the adoption of social media by students as a learning tool to enhance field trip experiences. Therefore, the first task is to understand how to increase the satisfaction of students in their use of social media to enhance IS field trips. This research sets out to understand the factors that could help increase students’ satisfaction with the use of social media to enhance IS field trips, and thereby their intentions to continue to use social media in future field trips. The results show that to increase user satisfaction, course instructors should ensure that students perceive the social media sites used for enhancing field trip study to be trustworthy, effortless, useful and accepted by their peers. Future research could determine how we can incorporate the use of social media to enhance the field trip learning experience.     

Exploring influencing variables for the acceptance of social robots

In order to introduce social robots successfully, we must first understand the underlying reasons whereupon potential users accept these robots to reside within their own homes. An extensive literature review has been conducted and provides an overview of variables influencing the acceptance of social robots categorized by utilitarian variables, hedonic variables, user characteristics, social normative beliefs and control beliefs. In a user study, in which 60 participants interacted with a social robot, both the robot itself and the interaction experience the users had with the robot were evaluated. The results indicate that especially the variables of usefulness, adaptability, enjoyment, sociability, companionship and perceived behavioral control are important evaluating the user acceptance of social robots. Hence, the present study contributes to human–robot interaction research by designating the variables that lead to social robot acceptance. Subsequently, this study may serve as a onset in developing an integral model which takes into consideration the relevant determinants of social robot acceptance.     

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.     

Investigating factors that influence social presence and learning outcomes in distance higher education

There are many factors that influence distance learning especially in higher education where collaborative and communicative discourse is necessary for pursuing knowledge. Social presence, among other factors, is an important concept to be facilitated, developed and sustained in distance higher education as it promotes and supports discourse based learning. This study examines the relationship among demographic and other variables, social presence and learning satisfaction. Results showed demographic variables, such as gender, online learning experience and work status were not significant factors in terms of influencing on either social presence or learning satisfaction. While media integration and instructor’s quality teaching were significant predictors of both social presence and learning satisfaction, interactivity among participants was a predictor of social presence but not of learning satisfaction. Along with the study findings, some implications were discussed for online learning practitioners in higher education setting.     

UX Curve: A method for evaluating long-term user experience

The goal of user experience design in industry is to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product. So far, user experience studies have mostly focused on short-term evaluations and consequently on aspects relating to the initial adoption of new product designs. Nevertheless, the relationship between the user and the product evolves over long periods of time and the relevance of prolonged use for market success has been recently highlighted. In this paper, we argue for the cost-effective elicitation of longitudinal user experience data. We propose a method called the “UX Curve” which aims at assisting users in retrospectively reporting how and why their experience with a product has changed over time. The usefulness of the UX Curve method was assessed in a qualitative study with 20 mobile phone users. In particular, we investigated how users’ specific memories of their experiences with their mobile phones guide their behavior and their willingness to recommend the product to others. The results suggest that the UX Curve method enables users and researchers to determine the quality of long-term user experience and the influences that improve user experience over time or cause it to deteriorate. The method provided rich qualitative data and we found that an improving trend of perceived attractiveness of mobile phones was related to user satisfaction and willingness to recommend their phone to friends. This highlights that sustaining perceived attractiveness can be a differentiating factor in the user acceptance of personal interactive products such as mobile phones. The study suggests that the proposed method can be used as a straightforward tool for understanding the reasons why user experience improves or worsens in long-term product use and how these reasons relate to customer loyalty.     

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.     

It's fun to do things together: Two cases of explorative user studies

This paper describes two explorative user studies conducted in a research project called Maypole. The purpose of the first user study was to understand how children thought communication with personal technologies could be fun. The second study focused on what children thought was fun in taking and editing digital images. In both studies, children aged 7–12 were given existing personal technologies to use in their own environment for one week. After that, a focus group was held with the children in order to discuss what they thought was fun in using the technologies.The results of the two user studies illustrate how fun in using personal technologies could relate to a user's social behaviour, and not only to human-computer interaction. Therefore, designers are encouraged to explore further the social aspects of fun in their creations. Moreover, the two studies illustrate some methodological problems in studying a user's experience of fun, which refer to a need for more public research on methods.     

Emotion recognition from physiological signals using wireless sensors for presence technologies

In this article we describe a new approach to enhance presence technologies. First, we discuss the strong relationship between cognitive processes and emotions and how human physiology is uniquely affected when experiencing each emotion. Secondly, we introduce our prototype multimodal affective user interface. In the remainder of the paper we describe the emotion elicitation experiment we designed and conducted and the algorithms we implemented to analyse the physiological signals associated with emotions. These algorithms can then be used to recognise the affective states of users from physiological data collected via non-invasive technologies. The affective intelligent user interfaces we plan to create will adapt to user affect dynamically in the current context, thus providing enhanced social presence.     

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.     

基于完全子图的社交网络用户特征识别方法*

社交网络已经成为人们获取信息、交友的主要媒体,但其自身虚拟性、匿名性等特点在给人们带来便利的同时也使用户身份不易确认.为此,文中提出基于完全子图的社交网络用户身份特征识别方法,根据三度影响力原则,构建推测模型,通过分析社交网络拓扑结构图中构成完全子图的用户属性,推测未知用户的未知身份特征.提出多度包含完全子图身份特征识别方法和多度传递的完全子图身份特征识别方法,利用未知用户的三度互粉社交网络拓扑结构图的邻接矩阵搜索完全子图,通过多数投票器方法进行身份推测,有效改善因社交关系稀疏而导致的用户身份特征识别结果不稳定的问题.实验表明文中方法具有较高的准确率.     

Enterprise resource planning adoption and satisfaction determinants

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are at the core of every firm. Making people use this costly and time-consuming investment is one of the most important issues to deal with. The main objective of the present study is to find the key determinants that open the door to user satisfaction and adoption. A theoretical model was set and an online survey was conducted to understand ERP users’ perspective on such matters. The outcome was the model validation and the understanding that top management support, training, and the system quality are important constructs to assess adoption and user satisfaction. In fact, the latter (system quality) has a significant influence on the behavioural intention to use and also in the overall user satisfaction. As management support is a very relevant determinant to ERP usage. Accordingly, this study enlightens theory, by contributing to a new model of ERP adoption and satisfaction. It also provides relevant evidence to companies involved in the ERP implementation process.     

The effects of winning and losing on social presence in team-based digital games

Social play is an increasingly important constituent of the digital game experience. Though there is a growing understanding of how the social context influences the experience of playing, there is little known about how the experience of play influences the social experience. Specifically, it is not even known whether winning or losing affects a player's sense of social presence with their co-players. This paper provides the results of two studies aiming to explore this interaction. The first study is a lab-based study that looked at whether social presence varied in collocated teams playing team-based games depending on whether they won or lost. The second study is a user experience survey which measured how variables in the context of gameplay affected social presence across a number of team-based online games. The results of both studies show that when teams lose, the negative impact on social presence is greater within teams than between the competing teams. This has implications for how studies in this area should be analysed and also, through consideration of individual games, suggests that mechanisms in the games may lead to the reduced social presence.     

基于用户偏好特征挖掘的个性化推荐算法

为了提升社交网络个性化推荐能力,结合用户行为分布进行个性化推荐设计,文中提出基于用户行为特征挖掘的个性化推荐算法,构建社交网络的用户行为信息特征挖掘模型,采用显著数据分块检测方法对社交网络用户特征的行为信息进行融合处理,提取反映用户偏好的语义信息特征量。从情感、关键词和结构等方面根据用户行为特征组,结合模糊信息感知方法进行社交网络个性化推荐过程中的信息融合处理,在关联规则约束控制下,构建社交网络用户偏好特征的混合推荐模型,实现用户偏好特征挖掘,根据语义分布和用户的行为偏好实现社交网络的个性化信息推荐。仿真结果表明,采用所提方法进行社交网络个性化推荐的特征分辨能力较好,对用户行为特征的准确识别能力较强,提高了社交网络推荐输出的准确性。     

Defining sociability and social presence in Social TV

Social TV, a new interactive television service, has been rapidly developing. With the conceptual model of sociability, this study empirically investigates the effects of perceived sociability on the motivations and attitudes toward Social TV. A model is created to validate the relationship of perceived sociality to social presence, usability, and intention. Empirical findings show the key influence of sociability on users’ acceptance and intent to continue using Social TV. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of building a theory of sociability and providing practical insights into developing a meaningful sociable TV interface.     

Multi-way versus one-way constraints in user interfaces: Experience with the deltablue algorithm

The efficient satisfaction of constraints is essential to the performance of constraint-based user interfaces. In the past, most constraint-based user interfaces have used one-way rather than multi-way constraints because of a widespread belief that one-way constraints were more efficient. In this paper we argue that many user interface construction problems are handled more naturally and elegantly by multi-way constraints than by one-way constraints. We present pseudocode for an incremental multi-way constraint satisfaction algorithm, DeltaBlue, and describe experience in using the algorithm in two user interface toolkits. Finally, we provide performance figures demonstrating that multi-way constraint solvers can be entirely competitive in performance with one-way constraint solvers.     

User involvement in system design: An empirical test of alternative approaches

User involvement in the development of information systems is often assumed to be key to successful implementation. However, few empirical studies have clearly demonstrated a relationship between user involvement and two key indicators of system success: system usage and user information satisfaction. The authors test the general hypothesis that user involvement is a more complex concept than previous research would indicate; there are different types of involvement and different stages in the system development life cycle in which users may become involved. In a study of 83 users in 23 companies, they found that only the activity of user sign-offs on project phases had a significant correlation with both user information satisfaction and satisfaction with the information systems group. The authors conclude that there is a complex relationship between the type and degree of user involvement and other organizational and individual factors; this relationship affects both user satisfaction with and usage of the resulting systems. Some suggestions for further research taking this complexity into account are given.     

Accounting and billing software and user reactions: An interactive diagnostic audit trail

The selection of an accounting and billing software (ABS) system is a complicated process. The overall satisfaction derived from a system depends on many variables. This study analyzes the influence of ABS (predictor) variables on overall satisfaction. It confirms our hypotheses that ease of operation, computer reliability, and ease of programming are the major determinants of overall computer user satisfaction. These factors were used in the design of an ABS diagnostic system based on audit trails (DSAT).