Contextual Considerations for Mobile Situations

Eyal Eshet TUCS

Department of IT Åbo Akademi

eyal.eshet@abo.fi

26.02.2014 Yritystä kehiin

Contents

§  Background §  Context matters §  Contextual considerations

BACKGROUND

Background

§  Grew up in a kibbutz in Israel §  Moved to Finland on 2001 §  Tradenomi@Turun AMK, KTM@ÅA §  Software designer

Background

Nörttien valtakunta Miksi korkeateknologiatuotteet saavat meidät sekaisin ja kuinka palauttaa järki

Current

§  Research on mobile application development – Design practice in organizations

•  UX, interaction design, strategic management

– Context

§  Aim to graduate this year J

CONTEXT MATTERS

What is Design?

Google

Convert an undesired situation into a desired one"Simon, 1969"

Design

Design is about creating a fit between form and context"Alexander, 1964"

Design

Design

§  Design is about creating a fit between form and context – Form: the solution, part of the world over

which we have control and decide to shape – Context: the problem, anything in the world

that puts demands on the form

– Fit: mutual acceptability between the two

Plan

Understand and specify the context of use

Specify requirements

Produce design solutions

Evaluate design against requirements

Solution meets requirements

Iterate, where appropriate

ISO 9241-210: Human-centered design for interactive systems

Context matters

§  Better-informed design decisions à more likely to meet user expectations

§  Designers need implicit understanding of the context (at least to some extent) – and … how it affects the design

Context matters, but…

§  Context is complex and in most cases obscure §  Nearly impossible to have a complete

description of the demands made by the context

Mobile shift

§  Context in stationary computing – Fairly stable, homogenous, predictable

§  Context in mobile computing – Dynamic, heterogeneous, unpredictable – Elimination of time and space restrictions

Mobile shift

Elimination of time and space restrictions §  Changes the framework in which society is lived §  Emphasize the importance of temporal, spatial,

and social aspects and their interrelation §  Call for studies of users in actual contexts of use

Mobile strong characteristics

§  Mobile as 1st personal mass media –  Print, recordings, cinema, radio, TV, Internet

§  Always carried §  Always connected §  Built-in payment system §  Available at the point of creative inspiration §  Most accurate audience measurement §  Captures the social context of media consumption §  Enables augmented reality

Ahonen, 2011

Mobile

http://www.kpcb.com/insights/2013-internet-trends

CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS

Context - properties

§  Emergent: actively arises in the course of the activity

§  Relational: relevance to particular activity and circumstances

§  Personal: relates to how one makes sense of the world

§  Evolving: experienced over time –  Longitudinal observation of factors that affect the

holistic user experience

Emergent, relational, personal

Individuals

Activities Places

Evolving - UX

7

“everything the user experiences while using something” (p.9), emphasizing the wide range of its application to any artifact. According to the authors, user expectations is the main factor that impacts the user experience as illustrated in Figure 2. People’s expectations from a certain device lead to the perception of the device. An increasing list of factors which may have an influence on the perceptions by people, in which Hiltunen et al. (2002) summarized into five main groups: utility, usability, availability, aesthetics, and offline issues (e.g. company brand, back-end processes). Expectations and perceptions eventually create interpretations of the device and a variety of emotions that form the user experience, which further impact future expectations. Hence, user experience is about designing an artifact to match with, or exceed beyond, user expectations.

Expectations

Utility

Usability

Availability

Aesthetics

Offline Issues

Interpretations

User Experience

InformationGathering

DirectsDirects

Produces

Affects

Forms

Perceptions

Figure 2: Expectations drive the user experience (Hiltunen et al. 2002, p. 14)

Hiltunen et al. 2002

Roto et al. 2011

Mobile context - components

§  Users –  Goals, skills, motivation

§  Task-related –  Frequency, duration, dependencies

§  Technology –  SW, HW, materials

§  Physical context –  Spatial location, light, sound, motion

§  Social context –  Collaboration, sharing

§  Information context –  AR, interoperability

§  Temporal context –  Time, hurrying, before and after usage

Temporal context

Fragmentarians §  Momentary use sessions (e.g. news, weather) §  Short use + small screen à few, well focused

tasks §  Temporal considerations – Time – of day, week, holiday, etc. – Actions expected before and after usage – Time related states – hurrying, waiting –  Save time vs. waste time –  Frequent vs. one-time –  Synchronous vs. asynchronous

Spatial context

Context-awareness §  Uses context characteristics to provide relevant

information and services to the user §  Partly addresses the emergent property §  Factual data: location, time, light, device §  Opportunities – Presentation of information and services – Automatic execution of services –  Tagging information to support later retrieval

§  Common activities and their relation to places

Task-related context

One eye, one thumb §  Selective attention due to multitasking with the

real world –  Public space in the background –  Interruptions switch user attention

§  Size and location of interactive elements §  Consume vs. produce information §  Goal- vs. action-related tasks §  Static vs. dynamic activities

Social context

Chosen over chance socialness §  Mobile phone strengthen the most intimate personal

relationships in individual life §  “Pacifier for adults” – reduces feelings of loneliness and

vulnerability –  Sharing of moments

§  People in the social circle are more likely to influence the use than those in the proximity à develop dependency on them –  Help in unpredictable or new situations

§  Less planning and scheduling, more spontaneous and ad-hoc actions based on current whims –  Collaboration, coordination of actions

Information context

Content first, navigation second §  People want quick answers to questions §  Time and screen space are precious assets – Get straight to the content –  Information needs

Technological context

Cross-channel user experience §  Multiple channels for users to interact – TV, Web, mobile, tablet, IM, physical office –  Second screen solutions (e.g. YouTube pair)

§  Interoperability between different mediums §  Dependencies §  Understand common activities for each channel – Each channel has unique strengths and specific

contextual considerations – Customer journey / context mapping

Tesler’s Law

Conservation of complexity §  Some complexity is inherent in every process §  There is a point beyond which you cant

simplify the process any further – you can only move the inherent complexity from one place to another – Human vs. system

§  E.g. email, mobile payment

TS 4.2.2014

Kiitos!