Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Applicability of Earlier Approaches
for Mobile Services
actual term “value”, Norman (1998) emphasizes
the importance of identifying big phenomena
related to user needs and communicating them
early on to the design. Cockton (2004) points out
that in value-centered HCI existing HCI research
components, design guidance, quality in use and
fit to context need to be reshaped to subordinate
them to the delivery of product value to end-users
and other stakeholders.
Mobile services are increasingly handling
personal information of the user, for instance due
to the personalization and context-awareness of
the services. The functionalities of the increas-
ingly complex systems are not always easy for
the users to comprehend. Context-aware services
may include uncertainty factors that the users
should be able to assess. Mobile service networks
are getting quite complex and the users may not
know with whom they are transacting. Technical
infrastructures as well as the rapidly developed
services are prone to errors. All these issues raise
trust as a user acceptance factor, similar to TAM
applied in e-commerce (Gefen et al., 2003; Chen
et al., 2004). Trust has been proposed as an ad-
ditional acceptance criterion for mobile services
by Kindberg, Sellen and Geelhoed (2004) and also
by Barnes and Huff (2003). Trust has also been
included in studies of personalization in mobile
services (Billsus, Brunk, Evans, Gladish, & Paz-
zani, 2002) and studies of context-aware services
(Antifakos, Schwaninger, & Schiele, 2004).
Ease of adoption is included in the studies by
Sarker and Wells (2003) as well as by Barnes and
Huff (2003). Sarker and Wells (2003) propose a
totally new acceptance model that is based on
user adoption. Barnes and Huff (2003) cover
adoption in their model within the wider themes
of compatibility and trialability.
Perceived user
resources
in the extension of TAM by Mathieson,
Peacock and Chin (2001) and
Facilitating condi-
tions
, in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and
Use (Venkatesh et al., 2003) also include elements
related to ease of adoption.
The focus of traditional usability studies is on
specified users performing specified tasks in speci-
fied contexts of use as defined by the International
Standardization Organization (ISO13407, 1999).
In field trials the users can use prototype services
as part of their everyday life. The research frame-
work can then be enhanced to identify the actual
tasks that users want to perform and the actual
contexts of use. Technology acceptance models
provide a framework for such studies.
Mobile services targeted at consumers have
several specific characteristics that may mean that
their user acceptance cannot be studied using the
same models as with information systems in the
workplace. When dealing with consumer services,
individuals make voluntary adoption decisions
and thus the acceptance includes assessing the
benefits provided compared with either competing
solutions or the non-acquisition of the service in
question. As pointed out by Funk (2004), mobile
services are a disruptive technology that may find
their innovation adopters elsewhere than expected,
as highlighted by the experiences with the Japa-
nese i-mode. Focusing too early on only limited
user groups may miss possible early adopters.
With the Japanese i-mode, other services were
boosted through e-mail and personal home pages
(Funk, 2004). This suggests that the focus of user
acceptance studies of mobile services should be
extended to interrelated innovations, as proposed
by Rogers (1995).
Perceived usefulness included in TAM may not
indicate an adequate purchase intention in a market
situation. Product value has been proposed as a
wider design target both in software engineering
and HCI approaches. A value-centered software
engineering approach was proposed by Boehm
(2003) to define more clearly what the design
process is targeted at, and identifying the values
that different stakeholders - including end-users
- expect of the product. Although not using the
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