Good to use! : Use quality of multi-user applications in the home

• Traditional models of usability are not sufficient for software in the home, since they are built with office software in mind. Previous research suggest that social issues among other things, separate software in homes from software in offices. In order to explore that further, the use qualities to design for, in software for use in face-to-face meetings at home were contrasted to such systems at offices. They were studied using a pluralistic model of use quality with roots in socio-cultural theory, cognitive systems engineering, and architecture. The research approach was interpretative design cases. Observations, situated interviews, and workshops were conducted at a Swedish bank, and three interactive television appliances were designed and studied in simulated home environments. It is concluded that the use qualities to design for in infotainment services on interactive television are laidback interaction, togetherness among users, and entertainment. This is quite different from bank office software that usually is characterised by not only traditional usability criteria such as learnability, flexibility, effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, but also professional face management and ante-use. Ante-use is the events and activities that precedes the actual use that will set the ground for whether the software will have quality in use or not. Furthermore, practices for how to work with use quality values, use quality objectives, and use quality criteria in the interaction design process are suggested. Finally, future research in design of software for several co-present users is proposed.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Datavetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Computer Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Software

computer interaction

laidback interaction

face management

ante-use

quality values

quality objectives

Computer science

Datavetenskap

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

lic (subject category)