Determining Causes and Severity of End-User Frustration

Abstract

Although computers are beneficial to individuals and society, frequently users encounter frustrating experiences when using computers. This study represents an attempt to measure, in 111 participants, the frequency, the cause, and the level of severity of frustrating experiences. The data show that frustrating experiences happen on a frequent basis. The applications in which the frustrating experiences happened most frequently were Web browsing, e-mail, and word processing. The most-cited causes of frustrating experiences were error messages, dropped network connections, long download times, and hard-to-find features. The time lost due to frustrating experiences ranged from 47% to 53% of time spent on a computer, depending on the location and study method. After extreme cases were discarded, the time lost was still above 38%. These disturbing results should be a basis for future study.

Product Meaning, Affective Use Evaluation, and Transfer:

“…Hence, the participants were made to believe the phones were either of the same brand (same-brand condition) or from two different producers (different-brand condition). Further, in order be better able to evaluate the validity of the emotional assessment, it was decided to operationalize an emotionally intense and potentially frustrating user experience by deliberately obstructing the interaction with the first device (Ceaparu, Lazar, Bessiere, Robinson, & Shneiderman, 2004). The core assumption concerning affective transfer was that, based on the failure experience with the first phone, users in the same-brand condition will evaluate the transfer device more negatively (i.e., transfer more of the negative connotations) than users who believe to have received a phone of a different brand.…”

Users' Adoptive Behavior Towards the ERP System

“…The reason for the integration of these components is to manage the business processes that carry the fast flow of information within organization internally and externally [1,2]. These corporate systems are enlarged with functionality and offer significant benefits to improve the operational efficiency in organization and it also manage the linking with the stakeholders [3,4]. ERP includes software for manufacturing; order tracking, payable and receivable accounts, general ledger, purchase & inventory, warehousing, transportation and human resources.…”

“…Complexity is only because of integration of different business applications and also to process huge data. The richer or multifaceted systems can provide less effective functionality if they have huge usability problems [4,5]. Furthermore the functionality and complexity corporate system persuade the confusion, frustration and failure with negative responses toward users, thus which leads mistake while working on such applications [4,6].…”

“…The richer or multifaceted systems can provide less effective functionality if they have huge usability problems [4,5]. Furthermore the functionality and complexity corporate system persuade the confusion, frustration and failure with negative responses toward users, thus which leads mistake while working on such applications [4,6]. Therefore there is requirement to deliver user interfaces that are easy to use, learnable, remember able and support the users in their anticipated tasks.…”

“…Therefore there is requirement to deliver user interfaces that are easy to use, learnable, remember able and support the users in their anticipated tasks. As small improvements in usability of ERP system can bring large benefits [4,7]. Partial work is available that highlight the usability issues on ERP that intent the authors focus towards this.…”