Self-Employed and Small Business Computer Users: Challenges and Directions for Progress

Abstract

The new convergence of computing, communications, and media are enriching people’s lives in delightful and diverse ways. Increasing numbers of self-employed people and small businesses are taking up the new applications and opportunities to assist them in their work even though the computer is not the main focus of their business. However, these users face many challenges and difficulties. Most are naive to the use of computers and world of IT and they generally differ from computer users within larger organizations because they face IT on their own with the limited resources they can organize and pay for. The main aim of this chapter is to describe interventions and perspectives that help self-employed and small-business computer users to use computers to further their life and work purposes. There are also important and useful messages for computer companies, system designers and developers, and computer sales and support people. But the main orientation here is on the users and what they can do to help themselves given the current situation they face and the probability that from their point of view, system usability, information security, and support will not fundamentally change in the near future.