Influential Characteristics of Enterprise Information System User Interfaces

ABSTRACT

End-user acceptance is considered as a significant factor influencing the success of enterprise information system (EIS) implementations and operations. This study conceptualizes three aspects of EIS user interfaces (UIs), namely information overload, control familiarity, and UI fit, and proposes a model to understand their effect on two major factors that are considered to influence the end-user acceptance of these systems: EIS end user’s performance expectancy and effort expectancy. We developed a theoretical model and multiitem scales for the proposed EIS UI characteristics and tested the model empirically with data from a survey performed with a sample 98 EIS end users. The results from our test provide evidence for the key role that EIS UI design plays in the end user’s performance and effort expectancy.     

User involvement in system design: An empirical test of alternative approaches

User involvement in the development of information systems is often assumed to be key to successful implementation. However, few empirical studies have clearly demonstrated a relationship between user involvement and two key indicators of system success: system usage and user information satisfaction. The authors test the general hypothesis that user involvement is a more complex concept than previous research would indicate; there are different types of involvement and different stages in the system development life cycle in which users may become involved. In a study of 83 users in 23 companies, they found that only the activity of user sign-offs on project phases had a significant correlation with both user information satisfaction and satisfaction with the information systems group. The authors conclude that there is a complex relationship between the type and degree of user involvement and other organizational and individual factors; this relationship affects both user satisfaction with and usage of the resulting systems. Some suggestions for further research taking this complexity into account are given.     

The relationship between user participation and system success: a simultaneous contingency approach

The relationship between user participation and information system (IS) success has drawn attention from researchers for some time. It is assumed that strong participation of future users in the design of IS would lead to successful outcomes in terms of more IS usage, greater user acceptance, and increased user satisfaction. However, in spite of this, much of the empirical research so far has been unable to demonstrate its benefits. This paper examines the participation–success relationship in a broader context, where the effects of user participation and two other factors, user attitudes and user involvement, on system success occur simultaneously. Other contingency variables considered here are: system impact, system complexity, and development methodology. The theoretical framework and the associated hypotheses are empirically tested by a survey of 32 organizations. Empirical results corroborate the positive link between user participation and user satisfaction and provide evidence on the interplay between user attitudes and user involvement.     

On the search behaviour of users in the context of interactive social book search

ABSTRACT

Understanding the search behaviour of online users is among the long-tail practices of Interactive Information Retrieval that helps identify the user information needs. The Interactive Social Book Search (SBS), under the umbrella of Interactive Information Retrieval (IIR), aims to understand the user interactions with book collections and the associated professionally-curated and socially-constructed metadata on the baseline and multistage user interfaces (UIs). This paper reports on the book search behaviour of users by reviewing research publications related to the Interactive SBS published during the last two decades. It presents a holistic view of the overall progress of Interactive SBS by summarising and visualising the experimental structure, search systems, datasets, demographics of participants, and findings to identify the research trends and possible future directions. Based on the collected evidence, it attempts to answer how the search system, user interface (UI), and the nature of tasks affect the book search behaviour of users. The article is the first of its kind that attempts to understand the book search behaviour of users in the context of Social Book Search with implications for usability experts and others working in UI design, web search engines, book search engines, digital libraries, collaborative social cataloguing websites, and e-Commerce applications.     

The effect of user engagement on system success: A meta-analytical integration of research findings

The effect of user involvement on system success is an important topic yet empirical results have been controversial. Many methodological and theoretical differences among prior studies have been suggested as possible causes for inconsistent findings. This research is an attempt to resolve inconsistent data despite differences that may exist in prior studies. Data from 25 studies were meta-analyzed to test the separate effects of user participation and user involvement on six system success variables. Results showed that user participation had a moderate positive correlation with four success measures: system quality, use, user satisfaction, and organizational impact. The correlation between user participation and individual impact was minimum. User involvement generally had a larger correlation with system success than did user participation. Overall, these findings indicate that both user involvement and user participation are beneficial, but the magnitude of these benefits much depends on how involvement and its effect are defined.     

Modeling use of enterprise resource planning systems: a path analytic study

In this research, we evaluated user participation and involvement in the context of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Since ERP systems are enterprise-wide in scope, these systems have a high level of complexity, and require a different implementation methodology. While most studies analyze implementation at an organization or industry level, there is a dearth in research in ERP system adoption at the individual or user level. In our study, we examine ERP system acceptance at the individual level. In this research, we expected to find differences in the nature of user participation and involvement in ERP compared to other information systems. Using Barki and Hartwick's extension of the theory of reasoned action, a revised model was developed and tested empirically. While Barki and Hartwick's model explains user behavior vis-à-vis user participation and involvement, a more parsimonious model demonstrates that usage dynamics in ERP implementation are different. We complemented our statistical analysis by three case studies. Based on our results we believe that, given the nature of ERP and its implementation, traditionally formalized links between influencers of users' attitude and involvement may need to be revised. We have discussed why we need to seek alternate forms of influencers. In doing so, we suggest that investments be made in preparatory work practices and employee development prior to ERP decisions. Such investments are complementary to information technology and are widespread throughout the firm. We believe that such investments will play a significant role in influencing the attitude of users toward any system and also their involvement.     

User commitment and collaboration: Motivational antecedents and project performance

ContextPrior research into the success of information system development projects views user commitment and collaboration as unrelated concepts in models that take either a perspective of mediators or one of processes. This perspective is limiting in that mediators and processes may interact during the course of an information system development project.ObjectiveIn this work, we model both mediators and processes as important to project outcomes and propose that processes will also be impacted by affective mediators, specifically the behavioral mediator of user commitment and the project process of collaboration. The model also allows behavioral antecedents to be considered in relation to the mediation variable, specifically the ability of the users and the extrinsic motivators perceived by the users.MethodA questionnaire containing constructs of collaboration processes, user commitment, abilities, and extrinsic motivation are completed by users in a development project and project success is measured by the IS staff for a matching independent variable. 128 matching pairs were collected and the model analyzed using partial least squares regression.ResultsResults indicate that the affective mediator can be influenced by the tested antecedents showing that IS project managers should be able to choose users with essential abilities and also establish sufficient rewards to employees, even those who may not be direct subordinates. Similarly, collaboration is still important to the success of a project, indicating that procedures to encourage collaboration be installed from the beginning of the project. However, commitment alone is sufficient to predict collaboration, meaning that motivation outside the processes in place may not be necessary to encourage collaboration between the users and IS staff.ConclusionIS researchers should consider both process mediators and affective states in future work when considering the link between antecedent inputs of software projects to the success of outputs. IS managers should promote commitment among users beyond placing collaboration mechanisms in place. This might require project managers have more decision authority in the rewards provided to user participants.     

Discriminative effect of user influence and user responsibility on information system development processes and project management

Context

User participation in information system (IS) development has received much research attention. However, prior empirical research regarding the effect of user participation on IS success is inconclusive. This might be because previous studies overlook the effect of the particular components of user participation and other possible mediating factors.

Objective

The objective of this study is to empirically examine how user influence and user responsibility affect IS project performance. We inspect whether user influence and user responsibility improve the quality of the IS development process and in turn leads to project success, or if they have a direct positive influence on project success.

Method

We conducted a survey of 151 IS project managers in order to understand the impact of user influence and user responsibility on IS project performance. Regression analysis was conducted to assess the relationship among user influence, user responsibility, organizational technology learning, project control, user-developer interaction, and IS project management performance.

Results

This study shows that user responsibility and user influence have a positive effect on project performance through the promotion of IS development processes as mediators, including organizational technology learning, project control, and user-IS interaction.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that user responsibility and user influence respectively play an important role in indirectly and directly impacting project management performance. Results of the analysis imply that organizations and project managers should use both user participation and user influence to improve processes performance, and in turn, increase project success.     

Towards a cultural user interface generation principles

As ubiquitous computing, and pervasive computing technology are being applied rapidly to the service industry, in the field of HCI, more complex and in-depth research are required at the moment. The efforts to make user experience more valuable using useful multimedia technologies around us, are being made in various parts of the world. In addition to this, generation studies for developing easier and faster UI are being conducted in the field of UI. Until now, the studies have been focused on generation studies using UI pattern models, but smart UI generation development, considering the cultural environment of users, is required. The purpose of this study is to suggest 3-D integrated design principles of modeling, design, and system for the design of cultural user interface generation reflecting the users’ potential culture models. For this, a CTT model was designed based on MB-UID; and a cultural UI generation system architecture was designed by using cultural dimension models and cultural markers. To analyze the cultural factors, CISC (Cultural Index Score for Country) was derived in the process of culture profiling. Then, to verify the design model, culture UI was implemented, targeting the category UI of smartphone app stores.     

End-user composition of interactive applications through actionable UI components

Developing interactive systems to access and manipulate data is a very tough task. In particular, the development of user interfaces (UIs) is one of the most time-consuming activities in the software lifecycle. This is even more demanding when data have to be retrieved by accessing flexibly different online resources. Indeed, software development is moving more and more toward composite applications that aggregate on the fly specific Web services and APIs. In this article, we present a mashup model that describes the integration, at the presentation layer, of UI components. The goal is to allow non-technical end users to visualize and manipulate (i.e., to perform actions on) the data displayed by the components, which thus become actionable UI components. This article shows how the model has guided the development of a mashup platform through which non-technical end users can create component-based interactive workspaces via the aggregation and manipulation of data fetched from distributed online resources. Due to the abundance of online data sources, facilitating the creation of such interactive workspaces is a very relevant need that emerges in different contexts. A utilization study has been performed in order to assess the benefits of the proposed model and of the Actionable UI Components; participants were required to perform real tasks using the mashup platform. The study results are reported and discussed.     

Enhancement of math content accessibility in EPUB3 educational publications

ABSTRACT

The article presents methods of increasing mathematical content accessibility in educational e-publications using multimodal user interfaces (UI). Educational mathematical publications such as exercise notebooks and worksheets, require student's interactivity in problem solving. EPUB3, an open format for e-publications, has the possibilities of creating multimedia, interactive mathematics content. Among the programs that support EPUB3, only a few support the MathML format presenting formulas, and provides limited possibilities for user interactivity, insufficient in mathematical education. Our solutions in the PlatMat system increase the interactive accessibility of EPUB3 mathematical content for students with visual impairment. The solutions are based on concurrent multimodal alternative interfaces for exploring math content in EPUB3 publications. Students can read and modify formulas choosing preferred UI and device. Similarly, in different modes (visual, acoustic and touch) students can recognise function graphs and shapes of geometrical figures saved in scalable vector graphics (SVG) format. Teachers can create universal mathematical documents for all students. The system supports inclusive maths education and is designed according to the principles of universal design for learning (UDL). The article describes the system’s usefulness in relation to research conducted among maths teachers. Positive results have become the basis for the further development of the system.     

User centred design for a digital welding machine

The design of the user interface of a digital welding machine based on a user centred design process is described in this paper. Due to the iterative design process and the involvement of end users, interaction techniques have been designed which are optimised for the mental work model of the target user groups.     

Satisfaction/dissatisfaction: are users predisposed?

User satisfaction (US) is probably the most studied construct in information systems (IS) research. Despite such attention, reported results regarding the relationship between US and IS success have been inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. Is it possible that something else is occurring in this relationship that has not been modeled in past studies? Perhaps user dispositional traits are confounding the results. Users may be predisposed to be either satisfied or dissatisfied in a way that has nothing to do with the system itself. This paper investigates the impact that user predispositions have on how users perceive IS. The results of the investigation indicate that there is significant relationship between user predispositions and US.     

Empirically Testing User Characteristics and Fitness Factors in Enterprise Resource Planning Success

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for supporting inter- and intracompany business processes are reaching maturity in many organizations. However, ERP systems are complex and expensive, and the decision to install an ERP system necessitates a choice of mechanisms for determining whether the ERP is needed and, once implemented, whether it is successful. User satisfaction is one evaluation mechanism for gauging system success. In this study, the efficacy of user characteristics and fitness factors as determinants of ERP success was empirically evaluated. The findings indicate that the fitness factors (i.e., compatibility and task relevance) have significant positive influences on ERP satisfaction. As for user characteristics, higher educated users have greater user satisfaction and managers have greater satisfaction than nonmanagement users. However, the study finds that user age, information experience, and package localization have no significant effect on ERP user satisfaction. The study offers insights that adopters and consultants can focus on to improve the level of ERP user satisfaction.     

Differentiated management strategies on cloud computing data security driven by data value

ABSTRACT

Data security is a primary concern for the enterprise moving data to cloud. This study attempts to match the data of different values with the different security management strategies from the perspective of the enterprise user. With the help of core ideas on data value evaluation in information lifecycle management, this study extracts usage features and user features from the operating data of the enterprise information system, and applies K-means to cluster the data according to its value. A total of 39,348 records of logon log and 120 records of users from the information system of a ship-fitting manufacturer in China were collected for an empirical study. The functional modules of the manufacturer’s information system are divided into five classes according to their value, which is proven reasonable by the discriminant function obtained via discriminant analysis. The differentiated data security management strategies on cloud computing are formulated for a case study with five types of data to enhance the enterprise’s active cloud computing data security defense.     

A Study on User Experience of Automotive HUD Systems: Contexts of Information Use and User-Perceived Design Improvement Points

ABSTRACT

Despite three decades of use and related research efforts, how automotive HUD can be designed to best serve the driver is still an on-going research issue. For any human-machine system, studying the experiences of the existing users is an important first step towards design improvement and innovation. Nonetheless, surprisingly few studies have investigated the user experience of the existing commercial automotive HUD systems. In an effort to address the research gap, the current study conducted a user survey on the usage contexts and design improvement points of the existing automotive HUD systems focusing on eleven high-priority HUD information items selected among those displayed by the existing commercial HUD systems. A total of fifty-one drivers with significant prior HUD use experience participated. Design implications were derived from the survey responses. They may be useful for improving the existing automotive HUD systems in both the system functions and the interface/interaction design.     

Needs’ elaboration between users,designers and project leaders: Analysis of a design process of a virtual reality-based software

ContextThe participation of users in the design process is recognized as a positive and a necessary element as artifacts suit their needs. Two complementary approaches of users’ involvement co-exist: the user-centered design and the participatory design. These approaches involve learning process from users to designers and vice versa. However, there has no research in design of virtual reality (VR)-based software dealing with how the elaboration of needs is actually distributed in time and among users, designers and project leaders, as well as how it is actually supported by tools and methods.ObjectiveThis paper aims to observe, in a real design project of a virtual reality-based software, how the various stakeholders (users, designers, project leaders) actually participate by sharing and pulling pieces of information from the process of needs elaboration, and how these contributions evolve throughout the decisions made in the course of the project.MethodOur method, based on the observation of the practices in collective design, allows us to collect and analyze the relationship between each possible action (e.g., elicitation), each stakeholder who initiates these actions (e.g., users) and each phase of the design process (e.g., evaluation phase), and the dynamics of the construction of needs.ResultsOur results detail how the elicited needs are dealt with by designers, users and/or project leaders: (1) we show a strong contribution of users in the design, compared to others stakeholders, (2) among the needs elicited by users, most have been validated by the designers, (3) some elicited needs could have been firstly rejected and finally validated and implemented.ConclusionWe identify the reasons which justify and explain our results confronting them to the literature. We underline the conditions have been satisfied in our study in order to involve effectively users in the design of emerging technologies.     

Psychophysiology of the passive user: Exploring the effect of technological conditions and personality traits

This purpose of this study was to investigate physiological response patterns of passive users versus active users under varying technological conditions. The relationship between user personality traits and physiological responses was also explored. In work systems, different types of users interact with technologies in different ways. Active users may control technologies, while passive users may watch the active user and the technology. While they are both important stakeholders in the system, little empirical research has been conducted to understand the passive users to date. A mixed design experiment was conducted to investigate passive user psychophysiological state, while active and passive users operated a technology under varying technological states (normal, unreliable, and difficult). Physiological measures were collected from passive users while technologies were being operated, these included electrodermal and cardiovascular (heart rate and heart rate variability). Results show that individual active users and passive users have distinct physiological response patterns in heart rate and heart rate variability while using the technology. Exploratory analyses indicated that conscientiousness was positively related to individual active users' task performance; openness, agreeableness, and extraversion were associated with passive users' electrodermal and cardiovascular responses. In addition, social interaction is more influential for passive users' physiological responses, compared to task performing. The effects of active and passive user personality traits on technology interactions are illustrated through distinctive physiological responses.Relevance to industryFindings from this study suggest that to improve passive user experience, systems that include both active and passive users should be designed to facilitate communication and information sharing between users.     

A fuzzy logic based approach for phase-wise software defects prediction using software metrics

ContextThe software defect prediction during software development has recently attracted the attention of many researchers. The software defect density indicator prediction in each phase of software development life cycle (SDLC) is desirable for developing a reliable software product. Software defect prediction at the end of testing phase may not be more beneficial because the changes need to be performed in the previous phases of SDLC may require huge amount of money and effort to be spent in order to achieve target software quality. Therefore, phase-wise software defect density indicator prediction model is of great importance.ObjectiveIn this paper, a fuzzy logic based phase-wise software defect prediction model is proposed using the top most reliability relevant metrics of the each phase of the SDLC.MethodIn the proposed model, defect density indicator in requirement analysis, design, coding and testing phase is predicted using nine software metrics of these four phases. The defect density indicator metric predicted at the end of the each phase is also taken as an input to the next phase. Software metrics are assessed in linguistic terms and fuzzy inference system has been employed to develop the model.ResultsThe predictive accuracy of the proposed model is validated using twenty real software project data. Validation results are satisfactory. Measures based on the mean magnitude of relative error and balanced mean magnitude of relative error decrease significantly as the software project size increases.ConclusionIn this paper, a fuzzy logic based model is proposed for predicting software defect density indicator at each phase of the SDLC. The predicted defects of twenty different software projects are found very near to the actual defects detected during testing. The predicted defect density indicators are very helpful to analyze the defect severity in different artifacts of SDLC of a software project.     

Don't underestimate the problems of user centredness in software development projectsthere are many!

Abstract

On the basis of a longitudinal field study of 29 commercial software development projects, the pros and cons of user centredness in software development were analysed. We looked at two concepts: user participation-an organizational device-involving a user representative in the team, and user orientation-a cognitive-emotional concept-which pertains to positive attitudes towards users. Both were found to be associated with project difficulties relating to process and product quality as well as overall project success. We suggest that the issue is no longer whether or not to involve users, but instead to develop a realistic understanding of the difficulties associated with user centredness.