A User Centered Innovation Approach Identifying Key User Values for the E-Newspaper

Abstract

We have studied the pre-adoption phase of the e-newspaper, i.e. a newspaper published with e-paper technology. The research question of this article is: In what way can a user centered innovation process contribute to identifying key values in mobile innovations? The aim of this article is threefold: firstly, to identify key values for the e-newspaper, secondly, to examine the intention to adopt a new possible innovation and thirdly, to explore user centered design processes ability to capture user values early in the innovation process. We have identified seven key user values: mobility, availability, personalization, usability, interactivity, readability and environment. Furthermore, we found that surprisingly many would consider exchanging their traditional newspaper with an e-newspaper in the future, indicating that the e-newspaper have a fair chance of becoming an important innovation. Finally, we propose a four phase model for identifying user values in a pre-adoption phase of an innovation.