Virpi Oksman

User acceptance of mobile TV services

Mobile digital television technology facilitates broadcast TV on a mobile phone as well as interactive add-on services provided on top of the selected TV channel. In this paper we describe the results of a six-month field trial where 27 users were evaluating commercially available mobile TV services and 10 different pilot services. Mobile TV found a role in the everyday lives of the users as an extension to ordinary TV. The users appreciated easy and continuous access to TV contents. The results highlight that short usage situations typical to mobile TV use are hindering the adoption of new add-on services. The adoption can be supported by using content, appearance or functionality familiar from other media. The main problems with add-on services were related to knowing about the mere existence of these services and their contents as well as understanding the concept of services available only during a certain TV show.

`Podracing': experimenting with mobile TV content consumption and delivery methods

Recently, mobile TV has been launched in several countries. While mobile TV integrates television contents into mobile phones, the most personal of communication devices, it becomes interesting to know how this feature will be used throughout the day and in varying contexts of everyday life. This paper presents empirical results on the use of mobile TV with different delivery mechanisms and both quantitative and qualitative results on how end-users prefer to use mobile TV contents in different situations. The data is based on ongoing empirical research in Finland in 2006 and 2007. The mobile TV services under study included both news and entertainment contents, and were tested in 3G, DVB-H and Wi-Fi networks using different delivery paradigms: broadcast, on-demand and download. To explore the use of different delivery methods and content consumption, we have developed a mobile TV service protoype, called Podracing. The analysis shows that users appreciated up-to-date information and information-rich media forms and contents especially for mobile news delivery. There was high demand for only the latest news on mobiles. The real-time property was considered important. Most of the users looked at the headlines or followed the news several times a day – much more often than the traditional TV and news prime times would allow.

A situation-aware safety service for children via participatory design

Children are mostly neglected as technology end users, even though they have needs and requirements that should be taken into account in the design of new products and services. This paper introduces a process for a designing situation-aware safety service for children with a unique combination of novel participatory tools, a brainstorming workshop, and scenario writing. The design process includes five phases where the service design team, with multi-science expertise, uses the participatory design tools to gather the needs, fears, and hopes from the end users in the very early phases of the design. We report the lessons learned from the usage of the design process by the pupils, their parents and teachers from one primary school in Finland. We used publicity via the news in local and provincial newspapers, radio, and TV to receive feedback and acceptance from the local society. The design process proved to be powerful and it enabled the gathering and receiving of valuable feedback from both end users and the local society.

Aesthetic Intelligence – Concepts, Technologies and Applications

This paper reports on the ideas and results of the First International Workshop on Aesthetic Intelligence (AxI’11) held as a satellite workshop during the International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI’11).

User participation in co-creative services: developing virtual and augmented reality tools for do-it-yourself home design

This paper presents key findings on user perception of an early AR home design product concept, which combines features of social media, augmented reality (AR) and 3D modelling. In total, there were 241 respondents for the scenario-based survey. In addition, some special co-design sessions were conducted to develop the concept with the target groups and to deepen insight on the needed user-centred AR functionalities with a participatory approach. The scenario-based methods proved valuable in the early phases of concept design. It appears that there is a demand for easy-to-use design tools both for consumers looking for a new apartment and professional users. Getting input for the designs from friends and family was seen important among consumers. For participating professionals, interior design is a creative process, and designers see a great challenge in preserving creativity in technology.

Shopping Mall Robots – Opportunities and Constraints from the Retailer and Manager Perspective

Social service robots are gradually entering into shopping malls to provide guidance and information services to the consumer customers. Earlier literature has reported that usually consumers response positively to these robots. Less is known about how do retailers and other business actors in the shopping mall perceive the robots. We present results of an interview study carried out with eight retailers and other service providers in a shopping mall, and three shopping mall managers. The results provide insight into their views about potential application roles of social service robot in the mall: what kind of services the robot could provide to customers besides guiding and information providing, and what kind of opportunities, requirements and constraints a shopping mall sets as a business environment for robot developers and service providers. The capability of the robot to emotionally engage with the customers was seen highly potential in shopping business but balancing entertainment with utility functions is crucial. A Pepper robot was used as a demonstrative platform in the study.

Comparing media types and delivery methods on mobile terminals

If a user had a choice of watching the latest television news on the mobile phone, or listening to the news on the radio, or reading text news with the mobile, what would he choose? The project conducted three trials, in which mobile terminals were used in such a variety of situations that no single media type and no delivery method was able to fulfill all needs. Unlike previous studies, the results indicate that mobile television does not involve low commitment: The users did not usually do anything else while watching. Furthermore, just surfing around or viewing an arbitrary program flow seems not to be enough. Even though one of key motives of mobile television use is to kill time, people may want to kill time with content which is appropriate for that particular moment. Entertainment in mobile broadcast content was found problematic, because mobile viewing is typically short-term and fragmentary; thus the users often missed the beginnings of episodes.

Towards a social iTV service: exploring user acceptance and changing media experience

In this paper, we present findings from empirical studies on enduser’s attitudes towards peer-to-peer (P2P) networked TV services. This paper sheds light on the changing trends of consumers’ media experience. We have gathered data with different research methods; with scenario survey and focus groups in order to understand the social aspects that people associate with their TV, viewing in their everyday lives and to discuss further on how interactive TV might change the experiences and social situations in which TV is being viewed. Our primary goal is to use the understanding of the salient factors that shape social TV experience as a basis for the design of NextShare TV, a P2P social media service, which is developed by a consortium of 20 partners across Europe.