Momoko Nakatani

Psychology of user experience in a collaborative video-conference system

The authors employ behavioral theories of human motivation and affect and present an explanation for why some CSCW experience is satisfying and engaging for a user. In a longitudinal experiment, participants were divided into four groups and solved two open-ended problems together using a video-conference system. Traditional metrics of usability and product acceptance were examined with respect to psychological variables such as personality, background knowledge, mindsets (i.e., implicit beliefs) and feelings toward group members. The results show that group-level mutual affect and implicit beliefs on ones ability (e.g., whether intelligence is fixed or malleable) are strong predictors of system usability and acceptability judgments. It is proposed that evaluating ones experience with a CSCW system is a meaning-making process and that the variables that modulate this process also influence subjective judgments of usability and acceptability of a complex collaborative system.

Towards a Culturally Independent Participatory Design Method: Fusing Game Elements into the Design Process

Historically, Participatory Design (PD) was introduced and applied in the Scandinavian and American context as a practical design method for collective creativity and stakeholder involvement. In this paper, by fusing game elements into PD, we suggest a first step towards a culturally independent PD method called the ICT Service Design Game to ease the prevailing concern that PD has limited applicability in other cultural settings. We conduct four experiments on ICT Service Design Game in Scandinavia and Asia to evaluate its feasibility. The experiments identify some differences in the PD process and the created Persona characteristics, probably due to cultural differences. Of more interestingly, despite these process differences, the game elements of our PD variant were found to promote the key values of PD in culturally diverse settings by stimulating idea creation and participation. Our experiments imply that the introduction of game elements allows PD to be effectively utilized in culturally diverse settings.

Scenario-based interactive UI design

Clearly picturing user behavior is one of the key requirements when designing successful interactive software. However, covering all possible user behaviors with one UI is a complex challenge. The Scenario-based Interactive UI Design tool is designed to support the characterization of user behavior based on scenarios and then using the information in UI design. Scenarios make it easy to understand and share user behavior even if we have little design knowledge. However, they have two big weaknesses; 1) integrating several scenarios in one UI is difficult, even if we can create appropriate scenarios, 2) maintaining the links between scenarios and the UI is a heavy task in iterative design. Our tool solves the above problems through its hierarchical scenario structure and visualized overview of scenarios. It enhances the designers skill in writing scenarios and designing UIs smoothly and easily.

How to motivate people to use internet at home: understanding the psychology of non-active users

Although many Internet services exist that can raise our quality of life, there are still many non-active users who cannot fully enjoy the convenience of the Internet and its potential even when they have computers in the home. To deeply understand this failure to use the Internet, we conducted a field study, and arrived at an integrated model depicting the psychology of active/non-active computer users. Our model enables us to understand the psychology of the users and the external factors affecting them and sheds light on how non-active users are stuck in a negative loop. Users that received a support service designed on our model dramatically changed their attitude and started to use the service actively.

Integrated model based on the psychology of active/non-active computer users: activating technology holdouts

Although many Internet-based social services exist that can raise our quality of life, there are still many non-active users who cannot fully enjoy the convenience of the computer and its functionality even though they have computers in the home. In order to analyze how to enhance computer usage, we conducted a field study and arrived at an integrated model that enables us to deeply understand the psychology of active/non-active computer users. Initial design guidelines for activating the non-active users are derived from our model.

Impact of Constraints and Rules of User-Involvement Methods for IS Concept Creation and Specification

Devising new service ideas for information systems by deploying user-involvement approaches is a challenging task. The power of collective creation by involving users in designing systems has attracted attention; however, stakeholders with no design training face critical challenges in generating ideas. In this paper, by exemplifying our user-involvement method with game elements, ICT Service Design Game, in comparison with conventional brainstorming, we show the impact of constraints and rules in user-involvement methods when creating service concepts and specifications for information systems. The analysis is based on a comparative experiment on two design methods and shows that the constraints and rules of our game approach fostered innovative idea generation in spite of participants’ limited knowledge of and experience with design processes. Although our analysis is still in a preliminary stage, it indicates some positive impact of constraints and rules in design methods, especially when the methods are used by non-design professionals.

Environment-Centered approach to ICT service design

One of the key factors we should consinder in designing the new ICT services that provide high user experience is environment. In this paper, we show two example in which the use of ICT service strongly depends on the environment in which the service is provided. We then propose an environment-centered approach for desinging ICT services. Traditional user-centered approaches like the persona-scenario method focus on the user domain, but environmental factors are considered in little while designing servies. We found, however, that service use is diversed drastially in the different environments. We have started to examine the proposed approach for ICT service design. A preliminary finding is that we can focus on environmental factors, especially, the environmental difference at different times, which is not considered explicitly in the traditional user-centered approach.

The Layout for the User-Friendly Manual: Case Study on an Internet Set-Up Manual

We propose two design concepts for the user-friendly manual and compare them in an experiment. The first concept, which focuses on user comprehension, is to use one picture of the completed wiring. The second concept is to uses a series of steps from left to right with the goal of making the user follow the order. Trials show that participants presented with material based on the first concept tend to follow their own mental-model rather than the manual. Material based on the second concept also failed to make users follow the order. Some implications for the refinement of manual design are derived based on the results.