Context Shapes Communication and Users

The discipline known as usability or human factors has traditionally drawn its theories mainly from cognitive sciences. This field of research has largely assumed that individuals, namely the users, are subjects who can be studied in laboratory settings. The studies have concentrated on cognition—how individuals learn to use systems and how they perceive items in the user interface. The user is assumed to be rational and possessed of more or less clear performance goals and is also considered to be a universal creature in the sense that findings in one country or in one user segment should apply to other segments—at least when it comes to principles in perception. Even if some differences have been detected and acknowledged, the user has most often been regarded as having a rather coherent set of skills when it comes to interaction. Research has accordingly emphasized issues such as individual’s perception, memory capacity, and problem-solving strategies.^[3]

The discipline of human–computer interaction studies the structures of users’ activities when they are trying to reach a defined goal. One such task analysis method is GOMS (goals, operators, modes, and selection rules).^[4] It models user’s task flow in an existing UI or prototype, and forms a basis for finding an optimal solution to the problems provoking a user’s goal-oriented activities (sometimes called procedural knowledge). The UI design is often based on an “ideal,” or the most efficient way of performing defined tasks, as determined in an expert analysis of the system. Usability tests or cognitive walkthroughs^[5] in laboratory settings are also frequently used to gain insight into the efficiency, effectiveness, and users’ subjective view of the system, usability goals defined in ISO 9241-11.^[6] These approaches emphasize the instrumental nature of the interaction and represent humans as information processors.

Applications in question have expanded from desktop data processing to mobile communication and service consumption. These broader forms of action and interaction call for wider criteria in researching the usability and desirability of bundled applications, services, and products.

Although contextual and emotional aspects of usability are now being scrutinized, usability still often concentrates on the individual’s performance on a device and his or her subjective report of satisfaction. These methods do not delve deeply into users’ lifestyles. The new communication patterns which flourish on the street do not easily travel into laboratory settings. Sociology and cultural studies, on the other hand, try to grasp the dynamic aspects of human action. They see individuals as multifaceted subjects in a cultural context full of socially shaped meanings. Because we need these wider perspectives, Nokia researchers have incorporated sociological methods in our standard design practices. It is important to see users as active individuals whose actions influence, and are influenced by, culture and society. By observing and interviewing people in their real settings we can learn about communication in everyday life.

Sociology brings the social nature of both users and products into focus. In fact, sociology “problematizes” the whole concept of a user. In cultural sociology, the individual or the subject is captured at the cross roads of various cultural streams, opinions, and manners of discourse. The power of multiple values, practices, and contexts in the subject’s immediate environment put this individual into situations where action is not always so coherent. There are fractional and subtle meanings that do not necessarily resolve into either-or options. For example, some computer users may both like and hate the terminal they use, or may be both capable and incapable of using it. They may see the value of its functions but also consider the terminal ugly or even immoral. They may express contradictory opinions in different situations.

Sketches drawn in 2000 for scenario manuscripts in a Nokia Research Center project that addressed future group communication services. [By Keinonen (2000).]

More situation sketches. [By Keinonen (2000).]

Even though technology and its social implications have divided opinions between—and within—individuals for ages, attitudes toward mobile communication are just starting to get interesting for observers. Chapter 12 illuminates future trends in mobile communication, which are perfectly characterized by a single word: contradictory.

Sociologists observe that people take different stances in different situations to better fit to the expectations of others. They may be polite in one situation and arrogant in another. The context influences which direction users go. Human action is thus open in nature—it cannot be reduced to laws of behaviour even if biology and cognition set some restrictions on the scope of action. Instead of deterministic rules or natural laws in human action, we find a range of possibilities, which users can actualize. Thus it cannot be stated that a certain UI structure always provokes a certain kind of reaction. This is not to deny that general principles in human perception and cognition, such as the principle of proximity, give some restrictive guidelines for design. They are not, however, sufficient to guide product development. In real life, much UI design addresses the appropriateness of features, including their priorities and symbolic meanings, for a given user segment. These decisions cannot rely solely on the usability findings or ergonomics. Instead, we have to examine human action in its cultural context to see how usability intertwines with other product preferences.

Thus “context of use” is one of the main extensions of cognitive user perception in modern usability as defined by Bevan and Macleod,^{[7 ]}“Usability is a property of the overall system: it is the quality of use in a context.” The concept of context includes the physical, situational, and, to some extent, social implications of a product design. Physical contexts naturally influence, say, the way we can interact with the physical terminal—noise level or weather limits the mobile phone user’s ability to use the phone successfully. Situational contexts are functions of several factors:

• What kind of culturally valid opinion sets are available to the user (are mobile phones accepted in this situation)?

• What kind of expectations must the user meet (should he call or send an SMS)?

• With whom is the user going to communicate (would the person being contacted prefer formal or informal language)?

Let’s look at some opinions available for technology users. These may include “technology optimism,” which promotes or requires that the user assume a skilful identity. Users who feel adept emphasize their skills and knowledge, even if they actually find some things difficult. Correspondingly, a user with technology resistance may claim to reject all gadgets or (deliberately) lack all skills related to a certain digital tool, thereby emphasizing and attesting to the critical attitude. Attitude may have an effect on behavioral performance measurements. It is key to see users as individuals with attitudes, interests, and activities to understand how their interactions with products are part of their everyday routines. According to these attitudes and preferences, users can be segmented into groups with more or less coherent behaviour.

^[3]M. Gardiner and B. Christie, Applying Cognitive Psychology to User Interface Design. New York: Wiley, 1987.

^[4]S. Card, T. Moran, and A. Newell, “The Keystroke-Level Model for User Performance Time with Interactive Systems,” Commun. ACM 23(7): 398–410 (1980).

^[5]C. Wharton, J. Rieman, C. Lewis, and P. Polson, “The Cognitive Walkthrough: A Practitioner’s Guide,” in Usability Inspection Methods, J. Nielsen and R. L. Mack, eds. New York: Wiley, 1994.

^[6]ISO 9241-11, Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Visual Display Terminals (VDTs), Part 11: Guidance on Usability, 1998.

^{[7 ]}N. Bevan and M. Macleod, “Usability Measurement in Context,” Behavior and Information Technology 13(1, 2): 132–145 (1994).