Kim, Kim, and Lee 2005 - Use contexts

From Inventiopedia

Kim, Hoyoung; Jinwoo Kim and Yeonsoo Lee (2005) An Empirical Study of Use Contexts in the Mobile Internet, Focusing on the Usability of Information Architecture, Information Systems Frontiers 7:2, Springer Netherlands, 175–186. (Link requires subscription to journal.)

This is a very useful report about a study aiming to identify the most common contexts of use for mobile internet services, and the most crucial usability issues connected with them. Use contexts are defined according to eight variables: Goal (utilitarian or hedonic), Emotion (high or down), Hand (one or two hands available), Leg (moving or still), Visual Distraction (high or low), Auditory Distraction (high or low), Co-Location (few or many people nearby), and Interaction (much or little interaction with other people).

A group of 37 test persons (dedicated, experienced mobile internet users hired for the tests) were tasked with reporting their use contexts and usability problems over two weeks, producing a large material (1552 sessions - 42 per person - 61 minutes per day - 1505 problems).

Results:

• Certain specific contexts dominate: People are more likely to use the mobile internet when they are standing still, and rather for fun than for achieving something useful, when only one hand is available, and when they are in a noisy environment.
• Usability issues are dominated by content-related issues (lack of appropriate content), and secondly navigation. (Particularly when the user is not moving, or is alone - more concentration on the activity, more demand from the service?)

"...in order to identify usability problems, usability testing in the key contexts is recommended in the process of developing new mobile Internet services. In particular, the results of this study might be important to companies that are developing context-dependent mobile services (such as location-based services) because it identifies key contexts in which people are using these services..." (183, my emphasis)

--Anders Sundnes Løvlie 17:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)