Information Technology Reference
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networks are being introduced to the market, these
limitations have somewhat diminished but still
mobile networks are slower than fixed ones and
the requirements for ease of carrying and holding
the device do not allow very large screens or large
keyboards. Designing mobile services for ease
of use is to a large extent about coping with the
limitations of the device. In addition, the design
should adapt to the variety of client devices and
available networks and other infrastructures.
The ease of use of mobile services has been
studied quite a lot and different usability guide-
lines are available e.g. by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C, 2008). It is a pleasure to note
that many of the usability problems identified in
early mobile Internet studies have already been
corrected in current mobile devices, browsers and
services. However, location-aware services pose
even more challenges for ease of use. Location-
aware services are not just mobile in the sense that
they can be easily carried around but, typically,
they are used while the user is on the move. These
kinds of usage situations require extreme ease of
use. Personalization and context-awareness are
expected to improve ease of use, but they may
also introduce new usability problems, e.g. in the
form of personalization dialogues.
Perceived value replaces perceived useful-
ness in the TAMM model because in our field
trials with consumers it became evident that in
the consumer market, perceived usefulness may
not indicate adequate motivation to acquire the
mobile service. As the focus group studies by
Järvenpää, Lang, Takeda and Tuunanen (2003)
point out, consumers may lack a compelling
motivation to adopt new mobile services unless
those services create new choices where mobil-
ity really matters and manages to affect people's
lives positively. In a value-neutral setting each
requirement is treated as equally important in
the design (Boehm, 2003). This easily leads to
featurism - the product becomes a collection of
useful features but as a whole it may not provide
enough value to the user. Value not only includes
rational utility but also defines the key features of
the product that are appreciated by the users and
other stakeholders, i.e. the main reasons why the
users are interested in the new product. As Roto
(2006) points out, costs of using the service also
affect the perceived value, as user expectations
tend to be higher for more expensive products.
Values are made explicit by the identification of
objectives, which are statements about what the
user wants to achieve. Fundamental objectives
are directly related to the user's current problem
or situation at hand, whereas means objectives
help to achieve the fundamental objectives (Nah,
Siau, & Sheng, 2005).
Defining the targeted values and concentrating
on them in design and evaluation helps to focus
the design on the most essential issues. This is in
line with the concept of value-centered software
engineering proposed by Boehm (2003) and
value-centered HCI proposed by Cockton (2004).
Focusing on perceived value in user acceptance
studies supports the wider scope of value-centered
design, where user value can be studied in parallel
with business value and strategic value as proposed
by Henderson (2005).
Trust is added as a new element of user
acceptance in the TAMM model. The original
TAM (Davis, 1989) was defined for information
systems at work, and in those usage environments
the end-users could rely on the information and
services provided and the ways their personal
data was used. When assessing user acceptance
of e-commerce applications, Gefen et al. (2003)
proposed to enhance TAM with trust in the service
provider, as in their studies trust-related issues
turned out to have a considerable effect on user
acceptance. In our studies with mobile Internet,
consumers were using mobile services that were
provided to them via complex mobile service
networks. In this environment trust in the service
providers turned out to be an issue. As location-
based services collect and use more and more
information about the usage environment and the
user, ethical issues arise. Ensuring the privacy of
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