User Needs for Location-Aware Mobile Services

Eija Kaasinen, User needs for location-aware mobile services, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Volume 7, Issue 1, May 2003, Pages 70 – 79 is a paper that studies location-aware mobile services from the user’s point of view. It draws high-level and non-ground breaking conclusions about key issues related to user needs, based on user interviews, laboratory and field evaluations with users, and experts evaluations of location-aware services. Even if the author acknowledges that context cannot be easily identified or measured, there is no mention to how users adapt their needs to these issues. This leads to the advocation for seamless services which is far from the current real-world constraints of context and location-aware systems. However there are interesting findings in terms of user perception of location-aware applications.

• Users want to remain in control. One of the scenarios created a feeling of haste; the servant becomes a master that starts to give commands to the user.
• Location-aware information was expected to be especially useful in special situations, e.g. in unfamiliar environments, when looking for a specific service or in emergency situations (spontaneous and occasional use).
• Most users thought that they would use location-aware services occasionally and mainly in unfamiliar environments or in emergency situations. These needs indicate that the services should be easily available when the spontaneous need for them arise.
• Interviewees did not accept the rational and purpose-oriented attitude to life that they identified in the scenarios. The scenarios were seen as going too far beyond the real needs of people.
• It is not wise to restrict the available information only to the current location and time: the users may also need to plan their next activities or to return to previous activities.
• In practice, people may not be willing to spend their time on something from which they do not get immediate benefit.
• Most users did not accept the idea of being contacted by strangers (cultural bias?)
• Ideally the user should see all the necessary information for a given task in a single view.
• Need to be able to use the mobile system both on and off line.
• It did not occur to most users that they could be located when using location-aware services.

This article was first dug out by Nicolas (Paper about user’s expectations when using LBS).