Using videotex for shopping - a qualitative analysis

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Abstract
Public access computer systems, e.g. videotex, enable the development of value added services such as teleshopping and telebanking. Potential users may not have any significant experience of computers, or indeed any interest in learning how to operate them. The computers, therefore, need to be simple to use. This paper attempts to identify features of the teleshopping task which contribute to problems of usability. This identification is a pre-requisite for subsequent experimental evaluation and system optimization. First, transactions are described in terms of a general model of the task. The videotex form of a particular transaction-shopping - is then examined and expectations of sources of difficulty are derived. The data from an observational study are used to identify sources of difficulty and to establish a set of operationalizable system variables contributing to user difficulties and errors. A model of the user is then described which accounts for such problems of usability in terms of mismatch between knowledge used by the expert ideal user and the knowledge used in real transactions. The errors and the statements of difficulty from the observational study are used again to establish the knowledge sources which mismatched with the ideal user knowledge. Relationships between the system variables and these knowledge variables are identified. The operationalizability of the variables allows subsequent experimentation to quantify their effects, and to confirm the grouping and relationship of system characteristics with the incorrect or inadequate knowledge sources. The findings are intended to contribute to improving videotex transaction systems. The aims and the success of the approach are discussed, along with the role of the models as conceptual organizers.