User Acceptance of Mobile Internet Services

Eija Kaasinen VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland P.O.Box 1300 (Tekniikankatu 1) FI-33101 Tampere, Finland +358 20 722 3323 eija.kaasinen@vtt.fi

ABSTRACT

In this paper I describe user acceptance factors of mobile Internet services based on a series of field studies carried out in Finland. Based on the studies I have defined a Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Services. According to the model user acceptance of mobile Web services is based on the value provided to the users, ease of use, trust and ease of adoption.
Keywords

Mobile services are disruptive technology that may find their innovation adopters elsewhere than expected [5]. Focusing too early on only limited user groups may miss possible early adopters. With the Japanese i-mode, other services were boosted through e-mail and personal home pages [5]. This suggests that the focus of user acceptance studies of mobile services should be extended to interrelated innovations, as proposed by Rogers [11].
TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL FOR MOBILE SERVICES

Mobile Internet, mobile services, user acceptance

WHY MOBILE INTERNET IS A SPECIAL CASE

Mobile Internet provides to the users basically two types of services: access to ordinary Web services and services specially designed for mobile use. Occasional usage is typical to the former type of services as users will access the services with mobile devices only if the desktop alternative is not easily available. The latter types of services are designed for small mobile devices and they may utilize information available on the mobile device such as location or other context data. In mobile Internet use, the limitations of the device have a major influence on user experience. The limitations include small screen, small and limited keyboard, the absence or limited functionality of pointing devices, limited amount of memory, limited battery power and slow connections. As new devices and mobile networks have been introduced to the market, these limitations have somewhat diminished but still the requirements for ease of carrying and holding the device do not allow very large screens or large keyboards. In addition, the variety of client devices, available networks and other infrastructures is much wider in mobile use than in ordinary Internet use. In mobile use, the context of use may vary a lot and it may even change in the middle of a usage session. This puts requirements to the ease of use but context-awareness can also be utilized to ease the use of the service.

The Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Services (TAMM) was constituted based on a series of field trials and other user evaluation activities involving over 200 users [6]. The studies were carried out as parts of technology development projects in 1999-2002. The study covered both services specially designed for mobile use and mobile access to Web services. The model extends the original Technology Acceptance Model by Davis [3] by identifying two new perceived product characteristics that affect the intention to use, i.e. trust and ease of adoption, and by redefining the theme of usefulness as value to the user. TAMM is presented more thoroughly in [8] and the whole study in [6].

TRUST

PERCEIVED EASE OF ADOPTION

PERCEIVED VALUE

INTENTION TO USE

TAKING INTO USE

USAGE BEHAVIOR

PERCEIVED EASE OF USE

Figure 1. Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Services [6]. The framework (Figure 1) suggests that perceived ease of use, perceived value and trust affect the intention to use a

mobile service. To get from an intention to use to real usage, the user has to take the service into use. This transition is affected by the perceived ease of adoption. Perceived value, perceived ease of use, trust and perceived ease of adoption need to be studied in order to assess user acceptance of mobile services. In the following sub chapters I will describe each acceptance factor included in the model and shortly analyze the key implications that each factor brings into the design of mobile Internet services. The implications are valid for services specially designed for mobile use but to a great extent they valid also for mobile access to Web services.
Ease of Use

Ready-made selection lists turned out to be useful when the user was getting acquainted with the service, whereas experienced users often preferred text input. Text input should be predicted and interpreted to suggest corrections to possible misspellings.
Personally relevant services without personalization efforts

Perceived ease of use was included in the original TAM and it is also included in the TAMM model. Davis [3] defined perceived ease of use as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort". At first, perceived ease of use is based on external factors such as the user's attitude and information from other people. In actual use and sustained use, perceived ease of use is increasingly affected by the user's own experiences of using the system in different contexts of use. Many ease of use attributes are already well known and presented in different mobile Internet usability guidelines but as mobile services are getting increasingly complex and enhanced with new characteristics, also new usability challenges are raised. Personalization and contextawareness are expected to improve ease of use, but they may also introduce new usability problems, e.g. in the form of personalization dialogues.
Clear overview of the service entity

Our trials repeatedly showed that users were not willing to do much regarding personalization, although they would have appreciated the personalized solution. Personalization should be voluntary, and strongly supported in the beginning. Users could be provided with ready-made service package alternatives or they could be guided through personalization services. New service offerings could be sent automatically based on user profiles if the user accepts that.
Easy access to situationally relevant services

Mobile contexts vary a lot and may even change in the middle of a usage session. Our trials with location-based services showed that in services targeted at a limited area, such as travel guides, service catalogues and event guides, the context of use could be predicted quite well according to user location and time. This gives possibilities for different context-aware features in the services, easing their use and giving the users personalized access to the services.
Facilitating momentary usage sessions on the move

Occasional usage typical of mobile services emphasizes the need for a clear overview of each available service, including information on service features, how the service should be used, where the content comes from, how often it is updated, and how comprehensive it is.
Fluent navigation on a small screen

On the move the users can devote only part of their attention to using the service while their main attention is on their main task of moving. Task resumability should be supported both in the terminal device and in the services. Pousman et al. [10] point out that resumability can be supported e.g. by atomic interaction sessions, by appropriate timeouts on unfinished operations, and by a stateless interaction model. The users should be able to use the services both on- and offline.
Design for device and network variety

The user needs clear feedback on which service and where in it (s)he currently is. In our evaluations, this was facilitated by descriptive and consistent link/page header pairs for back, forward, exit, home and other safe heavens within the service. There are additional solutions to support navigation such as Minimap introduced by Roto [12]. Minimap gives a visual overview of recently accessed Web pages to ease navigation between them. The usability of the sites can be further improved by making the structure adaptive according to each user. For frequent users, the structure could be adaptive so that the most recently or most often used items are easily available.
Smooth user interaction with the service

A good starting point is a simple service, suitable for any handheld device. The usability and the attractiveness of the service can then be improved by utilizing the unique features of each device in separate implementations. Our experiences from mobile Internet trials show that in mobile environments there may be needs for adaptive search services that would not only look for particular content, but also take into account the current client device. Google Mobile (www.google.com/m) that facilitates searching from sites designed for mobile Web is a concrete step towards those kinds of services.
Value

In our trials text input was often a major effort for the users, especially if the usage took place while moving. Still the users needed and wanted to give input to the services.

Perceived value replaces perceived usefulness in the TAMM model because in our field trials with consumers it became evident that in the consumer market, perceived usefulness may not indicate adequate motivation to acquire the mobile service. Values define the key features of the services that are appreciated by the users and other stakeholders, i.e. the main reasons why the users are

interested in the new services. Value is also related to the costs of using the service, and for commercial products the relationship of these two attributes should be studied, as proposed by Roto [12].
Successful service content is comprehensive and topical

Mobile Internet users need access to all relevant information, as deep as they are ready to go, but the information has to be structured in such a way that the user can choose to get the information in small portions. Topical information is likely such that the mobile service is the best way to keep up to date with what is going on. In our field trials examples of successful topical content included weather forecasts, traffic information, news topics and event information. Topical travel information, for instance, does not just give timetables but informs about delays and traffic jams and recommends alternative routes.
Personal and user-generated content

location-based services collect and use more and more information about the usage environment and the user, ethical issues arise. Especially ensuring the privacy of the user is an important concern. As the users get increasingly dependent on mobile services, reliability of the technology and conveying information about reliability to the user becomes increasingly important.
The user should be able to rely on the overall service

Letting the mobile users contribute to content creation could enhance many services. A mobile phone is basically a communication device and thus it is no wonder that services that enhanced or enriched communication were well accepted in our field trials. With the growing trend of social media services, the role of usersown content generation is expected to become increasingly important. Mobile users have key roles in many social media services as they can contribute by bringing in topical information from the field, such as mobile video of important occasions.
The users appreciate seamless service entities

Repeated malfunctions that the user could not understand or solve were a major source of bad usage experiences and often made the user stop using the service in question. To avoid these kinds of situations, the user should get easy-tounderstand information to help him/her to understand and recover from the error situation even if the problem was not in the actual service but the platform, network or some other part of the overall mobile system. Users should be made aware of the possible risks of utilizing the services and they should be provided with information about the reliability of the service so that they can assess whether they can rely on the service in the planned usage situations.
Sufficient accuracy of information

In the mobile Internet trials it turned out that usage needs for many individual services were quite occasional. The value of mobile Internet to the user was based on the wide selection of services rather than any individual service. The users should have ways to navigate easily between services and transfer information between them.
Utilising location data

The accuracy of information provided such as location or other context data should be sufficient for the kinds of tasks for which the user will be using the service. The users should get feedback on the freshness of the data and its accuracy, especially if these vary according to the usage situation. Both actual reliability and perceived reliability need to be ensured in the design as these may be only loosely mapped, as found out by Kindberg et al. [9]. Displaying uncertainty to the user may improve the acceptability of the services by making them more intelligible, as pointed out by Antifakos et al. [1].
The privacy of the user must be protected

Location-awareness can provide the users with services that are really intended for mobile use, not just secondary access points to Web services. Examples of such services include traffic information, weather forecasts, route guidance, travel information, event information and help services in emergency situations. Those services turned out to be popular as location-awareness made them both easier to use and more personal.
Trust

In addition to user location, a lot of other personal data may be collected in mobile Internet services. User data should be protected even if like in some of our trials - the users themselves would be trusting enough not to require it. The user should be provided with easy mechanisms for giving permission to use the data for a predefined purpose. Histories of user data should not be stored purposelessly and without user consent.
The user needs to feel and really be in control

Trust is an indicator of a positive belief about the perceived reliability of, dependability of, and confidence in a person, object or process [4]. User trust in mobile services includes perceived reliability of the technology and the service provider, reliance on the service in planned usage situations, and the user's confidence that (s)he can keep the service under control and that the service will not misuse his/her personal data. Mobile services are provided to users via complex mobile service networks. In this environment trust in the service providers gets an important issue. As

The more complicated the mobile services and the service networks behind them get, the less possibilities the user has to understand what is happening in the service. The services need to be somewhat seamless to ensure effortless use. Still the user needs to feel and really be in control. As automated functions may take control away from the user, the user should be able to control the degree of automation and intrusiveness. The user should be able to override the recommendations of the system, as suggested by Cheverst et al. [2].
Ease of Adoption

The Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Services includes a separate phase of taking into use between the

intention to use and the actual usage behavior. Perceived ease of adoption is related to taking the services into use. In our field trials it turned out that a major obstacle in adopting commercial mobile services was the users unawareness of available services, as well as problems anticipated in taking services into use [6]. Furthermore, as usage needs were typically quite occasional, people often did not have enough motivation to find out about these issues. And finally, configuration and personalization seemed to require almost overwhelming efforts [6]. As mobile services are typically used occasionally and some services may be available only locally in certain usage environments, ease of taking the services into use becomes an important issue. The user should easily get information about available services and should be able to install and start to use the services easily. Finally, (s)he should be able to get rid of unnecessary services.
Actual values of the services need to be emphasized

model fits with more recent findings and findings from other countries by other mobile Internet researchers.
REFERENCES

1. Antifakos, S., Schwaninger, A. & Schiele, B. 2004. Evaluating the effects of displaying uncertainty in context-aware applications. Davies, N., Mynatt, E. & Siio, I. (eds.). Proceedings of Ubicomp 2004: Ubiquitous Computing 6th International Conference, Springer-Verlag, 54-69. 2. Cheverst, K., Davies, N., Mitchell, K., Friday, A. & Efstratiou, C. (2000). Developing a context-aware electronic tourist guide: some issues and experiences. CHI 2000 Conference Proceedings, ACM, 17-24. 3. Davis F. D. 1989. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quartely:13/1989, 319 339. 4. Fogg, B. J. & Tseng, H. 1999. The elements of computer credibility. Proceedings of CHI 99 Conference, 80 87. 5. Funk, J. L. 2004. Mobile disruption. The technologies and applications driving the mobile Internet. WileyInterscience. 6. Kaasinen, E. 2005. User acceptance of mobile services value, ease of use, trust and ease of adoption. Doctoral dissertation. VTT Publications 566. Espoo: VTT Information Technology. 7. Kaasinen, E., Ermolov, V., Niemel, M., Tuomisto, T. and Vlkkynen, P. 2006. Identifying User Requirements for a Mobile Terminal Centric Ubiquitous Computing Architecture. FUMCA 2006: System Support for Future Mobile Computing Applications. Workshop at Ubicomp 2006. 8. Kaasinen, E. 2007. User acceptance of mobile services. Handbook of Research on User Interface Design and Evaluation for Mobile Technology. Idea Group, Inc. In press. 9. Kindberg, T., Sellen, A. & Geelhoed, E. 2004. Security and trust in mobile interactions a study of users' perceptions and reasoning. Davies, N., Mynatt, E. & Siio, I. (eds.). Proceedings of Ubicomp 2004: Ubiquitous Computing 6th International Conference, Springer-Verlag, 196-213. 10.Pousman, Z., Iachello, G., Fithian, R., Moghazy, J. & Stasko, J. 2004. Design iterations for a location-aware event planner. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8, 117 125. 11.Rogers, E. M. 1995. The diffusion of innovations. Fourth edition. New York: Free Press. 12.Roto, V. 2006. Web browsing on mobile phones characteristics of user experience. Doctoral dissertation. Helsinki University of Technology. Espoo 2006.

In our trials the users were often unaware of the features and services available. Currently, portals such as Mobi (hakemisto.mobi) that include thematically organized selections of services help users acquainting themselves with available services.
Disposable services for occasional needs

Ideally, the services should be installed on the user device at the point of sale with personal usage guidance, but presumably this will be possible with only a few services. The services may be available only locally or in certain contexts. The user should be able to identify, understand and take into use these services easily while on the move. E.g. Tag technology will provide interesting tools to ease taking into use local services by touching or pointing tags embedded in environmental objects [7].
The service has to support evolving usage cultures

Although the users will benefit from clear usage guidance, they should also be encouraged to discover and innovate their own ways to utilize new services.
CONCLUSIONS

In this paper I have shortly introduced the Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Services. According to the model, user acceptance of mobile services is built on three factors: perceived value of the service, perceived ease of use, and trust. A fourth user acceptance factor: perceived ease of adoption is required to get the users from intentionto-use to actual usage. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Services, I have also proposed some design implications for each user acceptance factor. The model is based on field studies in Finland with some of the first mobile Internet services, mobile-converted Web services and location-based services. In the Workshop, I would like to discuss how the