Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
information to understand different facets of the
phenomenon. The application of multiple evalu-
ation methods in multiple deployments enables
us to observe phenomena from different angles,
thereby providing a much richer and more vali-
dated image. In the following we discuss three
exemplary observations and show how a range
of deployments and methods helped uncover the
different facets of these observations.
seen the display because they were “not
interested in technology”. For the Wray
Photo Display, when interviewed many
Wray residents claimed to have not seen
the display, despite its location in the mid-
dle of the village's only shop. Especially in
the public where many things fight for the
users' attention, it seems to be difficult to
make displays seen.
•
Users don't like to stop at the displays
-
The video observation of the iDisplays al-
lowed quantifying observations that peo-
ple rarely stop: One display in the entrance
was passed by 141 people, 29 looked at
it, but only one stopped to look for 5 sec-
onds. Another display in a sofa corner was
passed by 114 persons, 47 looked at it, and
six people stopped in front of the display.
All persons who stopped did so for some
other reason than to look at the displays,
for instance to wait for someone (looking
45 seconds) or for making a phone call
(looking 20 seconds). When asked, users
said they have something important to do,
and no time just to look at the display.
•
Users don't expect interaction at the dis-
plays, especially because there is often no
appropriate affordance that such interac-
tion is possible
- When we showed users
the interaction, they were usually very sur-
prised and didn't expect that. For example,
a user who was shown the MobiDiC dis-
play was exited: “Oh, I thought it was just
advertising, but instead it is something use-
ful for me!”
•
Users don't prepare
- If users have to pre-
pare interaction is often impossible when
needed. The Hermes SMS feature was only
useful when users were not at the display,
so it was necessary to plan the interaction
in advance by storing the phone number of
Hermes. With the Wray display, users sim-
ply didn't carry their photos (that would
be appropriate to upload) on their mobile
Reasons for Disuse
One finding consistent for all deployments is that
mobile phone based interaction with the displays
was much less than we expected. In the MobiDiC
deployment for example, in the first 7 weeks of
deployment the software was downloaded 130
times, and during the first four months 34 coupons
were redeemed. The iDisplays interaction has
been installed on the mobile phones of 10 users,
but in six months was used only 20 times. The
Wray Photo Display has logged between 300 and
500 image views a month, but only 4 successful
Bluetooth downloads in total and no uploads.
While all systems had been lab tested for usability
flaws, the inherent social deployment environment
and the constraints of everyday life meant that the
displays were used in very different ways than
in the lab. This meant that other aspects became
much more important than pure usability.
•
Users simply don't see or ignore the dis-
plays
- While about half of the people
passing the iDisplays looked at them, al-
most nobody noticed the MobiDiC dis-
plays. Even when people made a telephone
call in close proximity to the displays, their
views seemed to systematically avoid the
display straight in front of their face. When
we asked people who had walked past a
display, they mostly stated that they ig-
nored public phones because they owned a
mobile. When we interviewed people after
making a call, they said that they had not
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