Design Requirements for Improving QoE of Web Service Using Time-Fillers

Sumaru NIIDA  Satoshi UEMURA  Etsuko T. HARADA  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E96-B   No.8   pp.2069-2075
Publication Date: 2013/08/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1345
DOI: 10.1587/transcom.E96.B.2069
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Network
Keyword: 
service quality,  user experience,  human-centered design,  waiting,  time-fillers,  field study,  

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Summary: 
As mobile multimedia services expand, user behavior will become more diverse and the control of service quality from the user's perspective will become more important in service design. The quality of the network is one of the critical factors determining mobile service quality. However, this has mainly been evaluated in objective physical terms, such as delay reduction and bandwidth expansion. It is less common to use a human-centered design viewpoint when improving network performance. In this paper, we discuss ways to improve the quality of web services using time-fillers that actively address the human factors to improve the subjective quality of a mobile network. A field experiment was conducted, using a prototype. The results of the field experiment show that time-fillers can significantly decrease user dissatisfaction with waiting, but that this effect is strongly influenced by user preferences concerning content. Based on these results, we discuss the design requirements for effective use of time-fillers.