The upcoming of smart phones are the result of consumers' preference for high-feature products: manufacturers are lured into integration of a growing number of technologies and features to provide attractive and competitive models. At the same time usability of such complex products becomes an increasing problem. This study aims to provide designers more insight into the consequences of emerging technologies on the usability of smart phones with different platforms. We conducted a usability benchmark study and tested 4 different features on 3 smart phones with 3 different platforms (Nokia E6li (Symbian S60, cell phone type platform), HTC S710 (Windows Mobile 6, PC type platform), Palm Treo680 (Palm OS, PDA type platform)) with in total 43 subjects in a between-subjects design. The results show significant differences in usability of the smart phones for the selected functions. For all platforms, the common design guidelines for usability still apply, but are restricted by the desire to integrate more functionality to create competitive products.
Besides the widely promoted advantages the influx of new technology is bringing to consumers, the disadvantages due to increasing cognitive complexity of such technological advanced products have also been recognized. Among other things, an increasing number of unknown field complaints is one of the evidences. Since consumers often perceive a product's (mal)functioning differently than designers do, we propose an attributional approach to evaluate potential product failures. In this paper, we present the results of an exploratory empirical study to evaluate the attribution of picture quality failures in LCD televisions for a diverse group of consumers. This approach is aimed to provide designers better insight into how consumers perceive (potential) product failures, in order to support critical design decisions in the product development process.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.