This chapter discusses users' perceptions of system impacts as one of the user experience components. Findings from twelve case studies on mobile news making with smartphones are summarized, focusing on the perceived impacts of system use and system characteristics that can contribute to user's perception of system quality. The findings indicate that the perceived impacts of system, i.e., the benefits and costs, for the mobile user, activity, outcome (news and news content), and journalism are important for understanding user experience and therefore the overall evaluative judgments of the system.
TopIntroduction
Quality-based models of user experience include descriptive qualities as user experience components. Most quality-based models of user experience, whether used as descriptive or evaluative frameworks, include pragmatic (instrumental) and hedonic (non-instrumental) qualities as user experience components (Hassenzahl, 2003; Mahlke & Thüring, 2007). In addition, emotional responses have been considered as one user experience component (Mahlke & Thüring, 2007). Quality in this chapter refers to qualitative attributes (i.e., characteristics and sub-characteristics) of a system, service, process, outcome of usage, or impacts that are verbally described by the user and are perceived, or anticipated by the user.
The impacts of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) are rarely considered and discussed as user experience components. The perceived or expected impacts can contribute to the overall evaluative judgments of the system and therefore to the consequences that are related to system acceptance, motivation for using the system, satisfaction, and usage behavior (Hartman, Sutcliffe & de Angeli, 2008; Hassenzahl, 2003; Mahlke & Thüring, 2007). The impacts of the adopted technology or solutions can be related to the user’s situation, activity, outcome of usage, or changing user roles or practices in the application field (Väätäjä, 2014).
This chapter focuses on perceived impacts of technology as a user experience component in mobile news making. It exemplifies in the case of mobile news making the characteristics of the system that can contribute to the perceptions and descriptions of system quality, including perceived impacts. Presented results are summarized findings from twelve case studies that focused on smartphones as the enabling technology for the mobile news making activity. Mobile news making refers here to news making activity that takes place in a mobile context of use by using mobile handheld technology, specifically smartphones, in one or several subactivities in the news making process (Väätäjä, 2014).
Chapter begins with a review of related literature on impacts of using mobile technology in mobile work, including mobile news making. Next, the research approach is described and the summarized findings on characteristics of the system that can contribute to user experience are presented. The results on the impacts of smartphones that the participants described in the user studies are presented. Finally, the findings are discussed and suggestions for directions of future work are given.