WWW 2008 / Alternate Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
How People Use the Web on Mobile Devices
Yanqing Cui, Virpi Roto
Nokia Research Center
Itämerenkatu 11 – 13, Helsinki 00180, Finland
+358-71-8008000
{yanqing.cui, virpi.roto}@nokia.com
In this paper, we first examine some related research and our
study methods, followed by the main section on emerging web
user activities as well as some key contextual factors. Based on
this discussion, we propose user activity taxonomy for mobile
Web use and discuss the relevant design implications.
ABSTRACT
This paper describes a series of user studies on how people use
the Web via mobile devices. The data primarily comes from
contextual inquiries with 47 participants between 2004 and 2007,
and is complemented with a phone log analysis of 577 panelists in
2007. We report four key contextual factors in using the Web on
mobile devices and propose mobile Web activity taxonomy. The
framework contains three user activity categories identical to
previous stationary Web studies: information seeking,
communication, and transaction, and a new category: personal
space extension. The new category refers to the practice that
people put their content on the Web for personal access, therefore
extending their personal information space.
The terminology used in this paper is defined as follow. By
“mobile device” we refer to pocket-sized computing devices,
primarily mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
”Use the Web” refers to viewing Web pages with a browser. “The
Web” not only covers mobile sites - Web content specifically
tailored for mobile devices - but also full Web content and
services. “Mobile Web” means using the Web on mobile devices,
while “Stationary Web” means using the Web on conventional
desktop or laptop computers.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.2 [User Interfaces]: User-Centered Design
2. RELATED RESEARCH
General Terms
This section presents literature review on user Web activities. It
starts from theoretical and empirical studies on the mobile Web,
or the mobile Internet in general for some cases, followed by
behavioral studies on stationary Web activity taxonomy.
Design, Measurement, Performance, Human Factors, Theory.
Keywords
2.1 Mobile Web Usage
Mobile Web, Activity Taxonomy, Information Seeking, Content
Object Handling, Personal Space Extension.
In theory, a mobile device can be accessed anytime, anywhere;
therefore the mobile Web occurs in more diverse contexts than its
stationary counterpart. Kim et al (2002) and Lee et al (2005)
classified mobile Internet use contexts into environmental and
personal factors. Personal context was the state or condition of
the mobile Internet user self, e.g. mental goals and body position.
Environmental context was the full set of user outer
circumstances, e.g. the physical distractions and other people
present. After a diary study, they concluded that people usually
used mobile Internet by one instead of two hands, in an indoor
environment, with a static position [15, 16].
1. INTRODUCTION
Mobile Web access is currently being hyped as the next big thing
for both mobile devices and Web services [12]. People are
becoming reliant on the Web for their everyday life, and
expanding its access from all devices, including the alwayscarried mobile devices. The mobile Web is becoming a major
revenue generator, following voice calls and text message
services. For example, mobile phone Web users had already
nearly equaled PC based Internet users in Japan by June 2007 [8].
The above-mentioned papers were based on quantitative studies.
Such methods, while shedding light on understanding general
usage pattern, were not sufficient to inspire new designs [26].
They were likely to ignore the emerging but not-yet-notable
trends and the nuanced differences between generic categories.
Chae et al (1998) applied the same methodology, questionnaire
survey more specifically, and concluded that mobile users wanted
to access Web content with low intensity that had small amount of
information delivered at one time, for example, news services [7].
Web use on a mobile device naturally has some similarities and
some differences to Web use on a desktop computer [23, 25].
There have not been, however, comprehensive studies on what are
the categories of users’ activities on mobile Web. It is an
interesting research question to examine if mobile Web use has
the same taxonomy of activities as stationary Web. Our research
consisted of a series of studies when we designed and
implemented Nokia S60 Web browser and a few other Internet
applications on a mobile phone. Such user studies played a vital
role to inspire and inform new concepts.
There are also several constructive studies that proposed and
evaluated new designs, particularly in the domain of Websites [4,
13], and mobile terminals [2, 19, 24, 27]. Reflection upon these
empirical studies led to several research frameworks. Roto (2006)
proposed a framework covering the major user experience factors
in the mobile Web: remote Website, mobile terminal, and
connections [23]. Palen et al (2002) summarized the wireless
Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference
Committee (IW3C2). Distribution of these papers is limited to classroom
use and personal use by others.
WWW 2008, April 21–25, 2008, Beijing, China.
ACM 978-1-60558-085-2/08/04.
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WWW 2008 / Alternate Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
It was of note that each individual type had different weights in
the taxonomy [14, 26]. Both studies emphasized the importance
of the first three activities (see #1-3, Table 1) but largely ignored
the last item (see #6, Table 1). The importance of Communication
and Transaction fell in between (see #4-5, Table 1), although
Sellen et al chose to exclude Email communication from their
research [26].
system containing four socio-technical components: hardware,
software, "netware" (operator services), and "bizware" (price
issues) [22]. Jones et al (2006) emphasized the importance of
information ecology - the device ecosystem where the mobile
Web resides in [12].
2.2 Taxonomy of Stationary Web Tasks
The studies on stationary Web user tasks initiated from the
Information Science community, especially in the field of Library
Research. According to users’ information goals, Web behavior
was classified to a dichotomy of browsing or searching, and
further expanded to more categories in between. In one of the first
empirical studies, Catledge et al (1995) used log data mining to
identify three Web navigation strategies: searcher, general
purpose browser, and serendipitous browser [5]. In another
empirical study, Choo et al (1998) combined the theories of
scanning modes and information seeking, and detected four Web
usage patterns: formal search, informal search, undirected
viewing, and conditioned viewing [7]. Morrison et al (2001) ran a
large scale survey and classified all Web activities into find,
compare/choose, and understand [21]. All these studies examined
Web behavior only from the angle of Information Science
theories and ignored some categorization from other perspectives.
Sellen et al (2002) predicted the future of the mobile Web by
examining stationary Web activity taxonomy [25]. They argued
that Fact finding and Browsing could fit into mobile context, but
Information gathering would be “entirely unsuitable” for mobile
devices. We did not spot relevant empirical researches to prove
the prediction so far. That motivated us to test the taxonomy
through examining actual mobile Web usage data.
2.3 Our Approach
Our study followed a constructive approach in gathering user
data, understanding existing user practices and emerging trends to
guide concept designs. We did not assume a pre-defined
framework before the study. Instead, all the frameworks emerged
from user data inspection, affinity diagram analysis, and
brainstorming sessions. Apparently, this method could suggest
interwoven categories. Therefore, we inspected all the emerging
themes rigidly to produce the Mobile Web Activity Taxonomy.
Table 1. Previous studies on Web activity taxonomies.
No.
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
Sellen et al (2002)
Finding
Information gathering
Browsing
Communicating
Transacting
Housekeeping
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
3. USER STUDIES
Kellar et al (2006)
Fact finding
Information gathering
Browsing
Communication
Transaction
Maintenance (others)
The qualitative data discussed in this paper originated from a
series of user studies in our mobile internet research project. We
complemented the data with a quantitative log analysis study with
a larger group of users.
3.1 Field Exploration
We ran the field exploration studies in six different cities over the
past four years, aiming at exploring the user practice in the mobile
Web, and examining its implications to future designs.
Sellen et al (2002) combined diary and interview method and
explored Web activities of twenty four knowledge workers. The
task taxonomy was drawn in bottom-up approach and six Web
activity categories “emerged” from the data inspection (Table 1).
Finding category was clearly goal oriented and using the Web to
find something specific such as a phone number. Information
Gathering was less specific but using the Web to purposefully
research a specific topic. Browsing was to visit sites without
specific goals but rather to be informed or entertained.
Transacting was to execute a transaction with products or services
through the Web, e.g., make a bank transfer, or fill out a
questionnaire. Communicating was about using the Web to
participate in chat rooms or discussion groups. Housekeeping was
to check or maintain the accuracy and functionality of Web
resources, e.g., check if the links work properly [26].
3.1.1 Primary Participants
47 active Web users participated in the study (see Table 2), 39
primarily using mobile devices to access the Web. The remaining
eight participants used a laptop in public WLAN hotspots, so their
Web use was not tied to traditional stationary contexts either.
Table 2. 47 users from six cities participated in the study.
A recent study by Kellar et al (2006) concluded with a similar
taxonomy through different methods. Based on literature review,
they proposed an initial structure, which was further developed by
pilot user study, focus group interview, and field study. In the
week-long field study, they logged user Web activities and asked
the participants to categorize them according to a predefined
scheme. They started with a construct consisting of four
categories: Fact finding, Information gathering, Browsing, and
Monitoring, and ended up with an almost identical structure to
Sellen’s, apart from terminological differences and an
uncategorized “Others”, later named as “Maintenance” [14].
City
Time
Participants and Connections
Boston
Helsinki
Tokyo
London
Oct, 2004
Mar, 2005
May, 2005
Nov, 2005
3 Females, 6 males, WLAN
0 Females, 6 Males, WLAN
3 Females, 4 Males, Cellular
Beijing
Bangalore
Jun, 2006
Mar, 2007
0 Females, 7 Males, Cellular
1 Female, 7 Males , Cellular
2 Females, 8 Males, Cellular
The participants’ age ranged from 17 to 63 with the average of 32
years. There were significantly more men than women
(man/women: 38/9) participating our studies because of
recruitment difficulties. It reflects the fact that more men are
actively using the mobile Web than women [23].
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WWW 2008 / Alternate Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
installs the logging tool to their mobile phones. During the study,
panelists also receive questions from the system to report their
opinions about the used functions. The tool does not log the exact
URL addresses or the content of messages, images or other
material for privacy reasons.
3.1.2 Data Gathering and Analysis
The study method was based on contextual inquiry that aims to
gather data in the real environment observing and interviewing
users as they are using the examined system [3]. In the case of
mobile Web, the usage sessions are short and take place relatively
seldom, so it is very difficult to go and observe users real-time.
Instead, we picked one location where the participant typically
used mobile Web and asked them to describe and replay the
recent mobile Web use cases as vividly as possible (see Figure 1).
With a few exceptions, the contextual interviews were arranged in
fixed locations, for example, the participants’ homes and offices,
or public places such as coffee shops and restaurants. All
interviews were conducted in participant’s native languages and
later transcribed, and translated into English. Each interview
lasted for up to three hours.
This paper cites data from a panel held in UK, France, and
Germany from March to May, 2007. The study involved 547
Nokia S60 Smartphone users. Their ages ranged from 16 to 78
with the average of 31.5 years old. 90% of the panelists were
male. The logging duration for each panelist ranged from 21 to 69
days.
The log data consisted of 20,854 visited URLs, and generated 5.2
GB data traffic. Mobile Web took 8% of the time that the
panelists spent on mobile phones (48 minutes a day in average).
4. CONTEXT OF USE
The field exploration research data came from six cities with
significant regional differences in term of terminals,
infrastructure, and Web content [23]. Each study location had
different service offerings, and the service was always in local
languages and formats.
The technologies available in developing countries were
somewhat lagging behind the ones in developed countries. For
example, we observed hardly any working public WLAN
networks in Bangalore and more relatively old smart phones in
use in Beijing. We also saw that PCs were not available
everywhere, so mobile devices were often used at workplaces and
schools instead of desktop or laptop computers. Despite the
differences in the available technology, the user activities in these
cities were very similar to the developed countries.
Figure 1. A scene from contextual inquiry.
Four contextual factors emerged as the main themes from our
qualitative analysis: spatial, temporal, social, and access factors.
We discuss each of these in the following sections. Quotations are
used to support the findings and print in italics for differentiation.
4.1 Spatial Factors: Mobile or Stationary
Our field exploration and the log study both provide evidence that
stationary locations such as home are a common context in using
the mobile Web. The typical scenarios included: check the mobile
Web in living room while watching TV, in restaurant while
having dinner, in bedroom while lying down. Figure 3 presents
the findings from the log study of panelists’ activity distribution
during working days. The mobile Web usage peaked at late night,
around 10 to 11 o’clock. In such contexts, the participants chose
the mobile Web probably because it required lower engagement
than the stationary Web. They accessed the mobile Web without
necessarily interrupting their main activity, such as TV watching
when lying on a couch.
Figure 2. Affinity wall under development.
The interviews were structured around the mobile Web sessions
that the participant recently did. For each session, we asked what,
when, where, with whom, and why the participant used the Web,
how long it lasted, if they faced any problems, and how they
solved them. The critical incident collection technique was used
to identify usage patterns [10]. The participants needed to repeat
some sessions when necessary. In Bangalore, each participant
also kept a diary for four days before interview.
“I sometimes go and watch TV. I’m a little lazy to go my
laptop so I check my email on the phone.” (Bangalore)
For the analysis of the qualitative data, we used affinity diagram
technique [10] (see Figure 2). This was followed by brainstorming
sessions, where we reviewed the data patterns, distilled the user
insight, and proposed new design solutions.
“I used my Communicator to read newsfeeds…while
sitting in the living room. Starting up the home computer
would take too much time and disturb my wife.” (Helsinki)
On the other hand, the mobile Web allowed higher level mobility
for our participants. For example, a home office worker visited a
nearby coffee shop more often after he got the mobile Web. He
could take a long break without worries of missing important
messages. Some Indian participants used the mobile Web during
3.2 Smart Phone Logging Study
Smartphone 360 is a logging study that records selected user
actions on a mobile phone. Each recruited panelist downloads and
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“Although a mobile device helps me browse discreetly,
my wife gets irritated when it takes too much of my
attention.” (Helsinki)
long distance travels. It was not guaranteed that the travel
destinations would provide a wired Internet connection, but the
mobile Web secured the connectivity. In the same way as
messaging and voice call enables “hyper coordination” [18], the
mobile Web further changes our perception of time and location.
Browsing
4.4 Access Factors: WLAN or Cellular
Networks
Music
WLAN and cellular telecommunication networks were the main
connection types that enabled the mobile Web during our study.
WLAN afforded a fast connection but limited mobility, typically
in an indoor environment within a restricted area. Cellular
networks enabled high mobility level, but supported rather low
connection speed. Cellular network also generated cost for each
piece of data traffic while WLAN connection did not. Figure 4
presents the median of data traffic and session duration from the
panelists who had WLAN enabled phones in the log study. The
sessions in WLAN context were bigger and longer than in cellular
network.
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
0
3
6
9
12 15
Hour of a day
18
21
T ime
T raffic
6
300
Figure 3. Mobile Web activities distributed in hours of a day.
4.5
unit: minutes
5
4.2 Temporal Factors: Duration of Breaks
A “micro break” refers to the moments between planned
activities, such as waiting for a bus to arrive or for friends to show
up. All mobile functions, including the mobile Web, are
competing to find their way to these moments. We observed that
the participants used the mobile Web for short breaks, even when
waiting for traffic light to change.
214
4
3
2
2.6
2.4
85
2.2
100
83
62
1
0
“I used Communicator to read news while waiting for my
wife in front of the fitting room in shopping centre. I need
to occupy myself with something during those ’odd little
moments’.” (Helsinki)
200
unit: KB/session
Percentage of Daily Actions
Voice Calls Out
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
0
WCDMA
EDGE
GPRS
WLAN
Figure 4.The effect of network types on mobile Web usage.
Because people wanted to save data traffic expenses, the usage
patterns differed by connection type. With faster and cheaper
WLAN connections available, the panelists engaged themselves
in the activities that generated large traffic, for example, Web
pod-casting. With cellular connection, users avoided downloading
heavy Web pages.
Some mobile Web tasks were short enough for the micro breaks.
For example, a participant could rather quickly check his Web
mail on a dedicated mobile site. However, a lot more tasks need
to be further simplified to fit such short breaks.
4.3 Social Factors: Alone or in a Group
“I have saved the start page of the train timetable site to
my phone to minimize connection expenses.” (Tokyo)
Mobile phone is as a personal device so we assumed that mobile
Web primarily supported solitary usage. To our surprise, mobile
Web occurred quite often in social contexts. One recurring story
was that participants used the mobile Web as a conversation
enhancer. They used the mobile Web to start a new topic, expand
an ongoing discussion, or settle a dispute. In Bangalore study, five
out of ten participants reported they often accessed the mobile
Web in such social contexts. The conversation topics ranged from
“who was the father of the Internet”, “when did a local band
start”, to “let me show you what I found”.
5. USER ACTIVITIES
The affinity diagram analysis of our field exploration data
revealed the following themes in mobile Web activities:
Information seeking, Communication, and Content object
handling. We also observed a handful of Transactions cases, i.e.,
the participants took online actions to secure a product or service,
mainly purchasing books online in our study. However, a more
common scenario was that participants gathered the background
information for shopping decisions through the mobile Web. For
example, a participant checked and compared air ticket prices on
the Web, but the actual booking was done through phone call. We
included this type of cases under Information seeking theme.
“I once used home WLAN on my phone while watching
TV to settle an argument with my girlfriend about the
official height limit of a midget.” (London)
Certainly, mobile Web usage was not always socially appropriate.
On most social occasions, it was an annoyance to others if one in
the group focused his attention to the mobile Web; unless it
related to other present people or other ongoing activities.
In the following section, we elaborate on the top three themes by
referring to observations and quotations from field explorations
and quantitative data from the phone logging study.
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WWW 2008 / Alternate Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
Information gathering activities also evolved from Fact finding
sessions. For example, a participant initially needed to find a
restaurant number, but ended up doing background research on
other restaurant candidates.
5.1 Information Seeking
Information seeking consisted of all the cases of using the Web to
gain more knowledge or entertainment, no matter if a person
knew exactly his target, just had a broad theme, or did not have
any clear goals at all. Following the terminology in the previous
research, we name these subcategories as Fact finding,
Information gathering, and Casual browsing. Fact finding was by
far the most common information seeking task in mobile Web,
followed by Casual browsing and Information gathering. In this
context, we define Information in its broad sense. It can either
take the firm of knowledge or entertainment.
Information gathering tasks typically involve user gathering data
from several sources and switching among them. Therefore,
people must encode and hold the data in their working memory
and further integrate the data from several sources. All these
mental operations impose a heavy load on human working
memory that has limited storage capability and subjects to data
loss after delay or interferences [1]. People develop strategies to
solve the memory problem on the stationary Web, such as
opening several windows simultaneously or moving all data into a
summary document [26]. However, neither of such strategies
works well on the mobile Web. Few mobile Web browsers
supported multiple windows or select, copy, and paste functions,
so the participants were not using these strategies in our study.
5.1.1 Fact Finding
Fact finding was about using the mobile Web to seek for a piece
of small and specific information. The most commonly reported
cases were to search for a specific fact such as a name, an address,
a number, a word, or a qualification; or to monitor the status of a
specific matter, such as the latest news, or weather.
“You cannot minimize a window on these devices, only X
available for closing the window. I cannot go to the
desktop without closing the application.” (Boston)
“While waiting for my lunch to come, I checked from a
bookmarked Website on my phone if the restaurant had a
hygienic qualification.” (Beijing)
5.1.3 Casual Browsing
Fact finding tasks demanded immediate access to the relevant
information. The searching fact itself might be time critical in
itself or essential for next tasks that would start shortly. In our
most recent study in Bangalore, we found that Wikipedia emerged
as a major fact finding platform. For example, participants
consulted Wikipedia, instead of search sites, as the first tool when
they wanted to know “what the first game console was”. The
following aspects make Wikipedia advantageous to a search
website.
•
Wikipedia offers unambiguous answer to a query: either an
immediate answer, or a straightforward ‘No results found’.
Instead, an Web search engine always produces a long list of
candidates.
•
Wikipedia is a collaborative platform where wrong
information can be corrected. A search engine does not
support such accountability checking mechanisms.
•
Wikipedia summarizes the data on a topic from various
sources, and puts it one click away. A search engine does not
aggregate relevant data, and a user needs to go through more
steps to gather the same amount of data.
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
Casual browsing was the information seeking session where a
person used the mobile Web to access general information but did
not have a specific goal other than perhaps to be entertained or
informed. Some previous studies classified such sessions
generally as hedonic tasks [15].
Casual browsing was a relatively common task for the
participants in our field exploration, especially for the ones with a
‘flat-fee’ plan. In Beijing, two flat-fee participants used the
mobile Web for more than two hours every day during their “idle”
working hours. They needed to stay in office but did not have
immediate tasks at hand, for example, when a nurse was waiting
for her next walk-in patient.
Casual browsing also occurred in social contexts when
appropriate. We observed that some participants browsed the Web
and looked for stuff to entertain the accompanied others. For
example, when a couple was driving back home, the passenger
browsed the mobile Web for the driver.
Another common use case was to access a set of regular Websites
to keep updated. The case was documented as monitoring activity
in some previous publications [14].
“The results of a search tool were too long to be displayed
on such a small screen… browsing through the results was
particularly hard for me.”(Tokyo)
“I use the mobile Web to follow my favorites
anywhere. …a Website on what’s going on in town. It
offers various recommendations such as top places to go.”
(Helsinki)
5.1.2 Information Gathering
Information gathering task was to collect information from
multiple sources to achieve a broad goal, such as making a
decision, or to collect knowledge around a topic. Sellen et al
argued that the users would avoid such complicated tasks on
mobile devices and postpone them until they had access to a
conventional computer [26].
5.2 Communication
Communication remains the first and foremost function of a
mobile phone [11, 18] and its horizon has further expanded by
Internet access. In our study, we spotted several cases of voice
services such as Skype and Fring, but far more textual
communications. Some of the Internet communication took place
on Web sites, e.g. Web mail or online communities, some other
outside the Web, e.g. push email, or instant messaging. In this
section, we mainly focus on the Web-based textual
communications, but also cover some non Web-based activities to
present a complete picture of communication via the Internet.
Our study partially supported Sellen’s argument: Information
gathering was not a common user task. The task only occurred
when demanded by user goals and supported by context. For
example, a participant needed to gather background information
to support her purchase decision when she went shopping. Some
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WWW 2008 / Alternate Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
criticized that the notifications could come any time of a day and
interrupted other ongoing activities. A few participants chose to
turn off the push mail notification or only update their mail
manually. By doing that, the participants gained more control
over incoming interruptions.
5.2.1 Web Mail and Client Mail
The previous studies showed knowledge workers appropriated
email as a “habitat”, where they spent most of their working time
in a wide range of activities such as checking messages,
exchanging documents, and managing invitations [9]. Our study
observed that the mobile Web further expanded the scope of such
a habitat. Figure 5 shows that most phone log panelists used
mobile email during the study period, either through Web
browsers, built-in or add-on mail clients. The built-in client
referred to the client software coming together with a mobile
device, whereas add-on client was the one installed after purchase.
60%
5.2.2 Online Communities
We observed some participants were using online communities
from the mobile Web. For example, some participants used
mobile to update their own status and to monitor others’. Such
behavior was not as common as email activities but had equally
important indications for communication design. For example,
online communities support pulling style communication. It
enables unspecified audience to decide whether they are
interested in it, and when they want to check it out. This
development contributes to silent technologies that aim to
minimize interruptions [12].
50%
40%
26%
20%
We observed one type of online community particularly common
in Beijing: a bulletin board system (BBS). It was an online
platform where people posted, read, and chatted. Some
participants spent several hours every day in checking their
favorite BBS. The active ones commonly competed to be the first
to respond to a new post. The mobile Web would offer an
advantage for the users on such an occasion.
10%
0%
Add-on
Client
Built-in
Client
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
Web mail*
“I usually log on to and hang out in the discussion forums
whenever I start to use Web, mostly from computer but
also from mobile.” (Beijing)
Figure 5. Mail types and their penetration.
* based on questionnaire respondents in logging study
“I first check emails. But once you get online, you start to
do all sorts of things.” (Boston)
5.2.3 Impact from Mobile Platforms
Mobile Web users seldom replied to emails on their mobile
devices, other than a short reply to the urgent message. Figure 6
presents the finding from our logging study: the panelists
altogether received 10,502 but only sent out 495 messages from
their mobile mail clients.
The mobile client mail supported Push mail. It delivered a new
message to mobile devices automatically and gave an immediate
notification. Blackberry mail service and i-mode mobile mail are
examples of push mail systems. I-mode mobile mail worked in a
similar way as text messaging and supported long body text and
attachments. Push mail behaved similarly as text messaging;
therefore it invited the same etiquette. As a part of the effect,
mobile mail was becoming a nearly synchronous communication
channel at all times. Push mail users were prepared for a new
message all the time, and Web mail users were constantly
checking their accounts.
Sent out 495 mails
(5%)
“I check my mail much more often than before. Usually I
check my Web 20 times a day or so with this mobile
phone.” (Boston)
Received10502 mails
(95%)
Mobile web is a technology that offers paradoxical user values. It
grants people immediate access to their messages all the time, but
potentially poses a distraction and even danger to their every day
life [20].
Figure 6. Low response on platform mobile mail.
The participants commonly postponed replying to a message until
they had a decent keyboard available. In Tokyo, i-mode mobile
mails were not accessible from the stationary Web; therefore,
several Japanese participants forwarded their mobile mail to
conventional email accounts for a proper reply.
Crackberry as one nickname to a popular mail device Blackberry
reflects the fact that some of its users get so addicted to reading
their emails that they check and reply to a message the moment it
arrives, whatever the context is. We found the participants to
handle mobile mails in the middle of a sleeping night, and
locations such as in a movie theater. As an extreme case, one of
our participants was described by her parents as “being married
with her mobile”.
“I never reply to Yahoo! emails on my mobile. I just read
them, and go to a PC to reply.” (Tokyo)
The mobile Web inherits the problem of handling multiple
identities from the stationary Web. The participants used several
services for similar purposes, or had several accounts under one
There were another group of participants who did not appreciate
mobile email supporting synchronous communication. They
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WWW 2008 / Alternate Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
service. For example, a participant might have several email
accounts from one or several providers. It is becoming more
difficult to manage multiple identities on mobile devices as they
do not support multiple windows, which disable people from
putting several identities in use simultaneously. However, mobile
also offers new possibilities that stationary web does not have,
such as a unified contact book. We will explore more details on
the topic in the following discussion section.
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
Participants only shared objects that carried appropriate value and
were easy to handle, both for giving and accepting. Personal
generated content composed most of the sharing objects. They
usually reflected a particular moment in personal life and took the
shape of discrete entities, such as photos, video clips, and text
document. Public data sharing usually occurred through URL,
which was a handy way to point others the relevant information.
Such activities reflected a social gesture of caring and being
cared; therefore, they were valued by both senders and recipients.
5.3 Content Object Handling
To certain extent, sharing activities also change interpersonal
communication practice. For example, on a social networking
site, people aggregate data from diverse sources to an online
profile page, and reveal it to connected contacts. Such sharing
activity changes how people get to know new people, and keep in
touch with the old contacts.
Content Object handling was the activity where participants used
the Web to manipulate digital content in the same manner as
every-day physical objects. Used in its restricted sense, an object
was a perceivably discrete entity that can be manipulated
independently of other such entities. It was either public data
captured from the Web such as a ring tone or a wall paper, or
personal content generated by the participants themselves such as
a photo or a video clip.
5.3.3 Maintaining Content Online
We observed that participants used the Web to maintain content
objects. They put these digital objects – captured from the public
sites or generated by themselves – on the Web for personal
access. The Web became a secondary storage as a backup
medium, or a primary storage as a remote working space. For
example, one restaurant owner used the mobile Web as the
primary memory to track his business ledger.
5.3.1 Capturing Public Data
The participants captured objects from the public Web, primarily
standalone items such as ring tones, wall papers, and add-on
applications. In phone logging study, 86% of the panelists
claimed it “important”, “very important” or “extremely
important" to install add-on applications, while only 5% gave
negative responses on a seven-point scale. The popular add-on
applications included Opera/Opera Mini, Adobe Readers, AntiVirus, Nokia Life Blog, Tom Tom, and Yahoo! Go, etc. Digital
discount coupon emerged as a common use case in Tokyo.
Several Japanese participants downloaded discount coupons from
the mobile Web and used them for offline shopping.
<Why do you store the primary ledger in your Web
mail?> “It is convenient as I always carry <my phone>
with me, and secure as my workers will never get access
to my phone. I need to make sure they cannot access the
data.” (Bangalore)
People probably used the Web to manage personal content online
ever since the Web was invented. But such a use case seemingly
stood out recently with ever increasing multiple device ownership
and all types of Web services. The use case fits well with mobile
context in particular. As an always carried item, mobile device
supports creating and accessing some content instantaneously. On
the other hand, these devices had a high loss risk, which invites
people to look for alternative storage mediums.
The participants seldom intentionally captured whole Web pages
as individual objects to their mobile devices. Instead, they used
bookmark as an alternative strategy to manipulate Web pages,
typically perceived as non-object content. For example, some
Japanese participants archived newsletters that embedded links to
other mobile friendly web sites.
“I do not download Web pages. Um, probably, only once
I downloaded a page of a long news story in order to read
it in the plane.” (Helsinki)
“I put my email inbox, contacts, calendar…on the Web
server instead of my phone.” (Tokyo)
It was seemingly a growing trend to maintain personal content on
the Web. We observed more cases in our recent sessions –
Bangalore in particular – than in the early ones. But the
chronological change needed to be interpreted cautiously as it
could be biased by other factors in our study. For example, our
recent field studies were mostly in developing countries, while the
early ones were in developed countries.
A design should support the entire life cycle of captured objects,
from capturing the data to mobile to removing it when no longer
in use [27]. For example, a design should inform the participants
whether the device supported a download, and offer a quick and
safe way to remove the abandoned objects. When a device was
full of useless objects, the participant would not be able to return
to a clean system without a proper design in place
“I need a way to remove the Web services or applications
that I no longer use. It takes up a lot of space.” (Tokyo)
6. DISCUSSION
6.1 Mobile Web Activity Taxonomy
5.3.2 Sharing With Others
In our user research through field exploration and smart phone log
analysis, we identify several major mobile Web activity themes.
That is, Information seeking, Communication, Transaction, and
Content object handling.
Sharing referred to the use case that people used the mobile Web
for transferring content objects to others, either giving them to one
or several selected receipts, or publishing them for a large
audience or the general public.
Content object handling refer to the activities that participants
perceive some content as discrete entities and manipulate them
similarly as everyday physical objects. When we further analyze
the themes, we notice that this theme is actually interwoven with
“Mobile email is readily up and running. It’s my
homepage on the Web. From there, I send photos and text
to my Blog, and click links to other sites.” (Tokyo)
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WWW 2008 / Alternate Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
activities that people exchange their data with others, either with
individual persons to share experiences or knowledge, or with
institute delegates to obtain products or services.
other user activities. We relate it to other mobile Web activities,
as illustrated in Figure 7. Subcategories under Content object
handling can be placed as special cases of other Web activity
themes to their left when seeking or exchanging information are
perceived or manipulated as objects.
Two activity categories, Housekeeping and Maintenance, were
reported on the stationary Web, but not in our research.
Housekeeping was defined as “using the Web to check or
maintain the accuracy and functionality of Web resources. E.g.,
Checking that information on a Web site was up to date, that links
were working properly and so on” [26]. The category took about
5% of the user activities on the stationary Web. Given the smaller
set of Web sites people accessed from mobile devices, we argue
housekeeping need was reduced on the mobile Web. Maintenance
did not have clear definition as it originated from not- defined
“others” in Kellar’s paper [14]. Therefore, we were not able to
explain its absence in detail. The category took 4% of stationery
Web activities in the above mentioned study.
Capturing public objects from the Web has a close relationship
with Information seeking. Capturing a public object typically
occurred as a byproduct when people performed information
seeking tasks. Sharing, either public or personal content objects,
was typically a part of interpersonal Communication or
occasionally Transaction practices. The latter activities targeted at
institute delegates, for example, when submitting a resume for an
online job application. In summary, Capturing and Sharing can be
well explained under the category of Information seeking, and
Communication or Transaction respectively.
We propose Personal space extension as a new category on the
mobile Web user activity. It refers to the activities that people put
their digital content on the Web for personal access. The new
category was not reported as a distinctive user activity category in
previous stationary Web research. We argue its emergence could
be attributed to several reasons:
Content Object Handling
#1. Information Seeking
Capturing content objects from
the Web for personal use
#2. Communication
Sharing public or personal
content objects with others
April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
•
The growing multiple device ownership requires a central
place accessible from multiple devices, either from various
personal computers in pockets, home, and office or from
public computers in Internet cafes.
•
The increasing capability enables people to generate,
receive, or capture a lot of content on mobile devices [17].
People need a storage medium to secure such valuable data
in case of device loss.
•
Web content providers promote innovative applications and
services that encourage participation, sharing, and
collaboration. All such designs invite people to put their
personal content online.
#3. Transaction
#4. Personal Space Extension Maintaining content objects
online for personal access
Figure 7. User activities on the mobile Web.
We add a new item Personal space extension into horizontal user
activity categories as a counterpart to Maintaining content objects
online for personal access. Such content objects used to be kept
in “personal spaces” - local storage medium only accessible to its
owner. The people reclaim public space and therefore extend their
personal information space when putting personal data on the
Web. We define Personal space extension as the activities that
people put their content online for personal access. The new
horizontal category is not limited to handling content objects but
the content not necessarily perceived as objects as well. For
example, people synchronize system data onto the Web, which
are not packaged as meaningful units or even not targeted at
human access at all.
We propose that Personal space extension is not limited to mobile
platform but exists on the stationary Web as well. Their primitive
cases may have been spotted in early studies but grouped into
other categories, such as maintenance or housekeeping. With the
recent development of new Web applications and services, we
argue it deserves to be listed separately in Web activity
taxonomy.
6.3 Design Implications
6.3.1 Beyond Web Browser
In summary, mobile Web activity taxonomy consists of four
categories: Information seeking, Transaction, Communication,
and Personal space extension. These categories also intertwined
with a vertical Web activity category: Content object handling.
Web browser still serves as the main window to Web content. We
argue the browser’s role may diminish in the future, given the
diverse user activities that the mobile Web supports. The future
mobile interaction designs demand hiding the unnecessary
boundaries between mobile and the Web, and streamlining user
interaction with online content.
6.2 Comparison with Stationary Web Studies
Most of the stationary Web user activities also occur on the
mobile Web. Fact finding, Information gathering, and Casual
browsing refer to activities that people purposefully seek for
information about a topic or a broad theme through the mobile
Web. We group them under a higher category Information seeking
because all of the activities aim at changing user’s knowledge
state or making them entertained. Kellar et al argued for a similar
regrouping [14]. Communication and Transaction consist of the
“I am using many mobile applications and I want them to
interoperate seamlessly for example, Email, browser, feed
reader, and text messaging.” (Helsinki)
For the perspective of mobile interaction design, it is worthwhile
to systemically explore alternative Web content delivery
mechanisms beyond Web browser. For example, the recently
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April 21-25, 2008 · Beijing, China
which means that people put their content on the Web for
personal access, and therefore extends their personal information
space. We propose this new category based on the analysis of
Content object handling, where people perceive some public or
personal content as discrete entities, and use the mobile Web to
manipulate them in a similar way as every-day physical objects.
popular Internet widget is one step in this direction. A similar
vision also existed in the work by Sellen et al [25]. They
promoted designing mobile device as information appliances such
as an Internet-connected watch that enabled quick access to the
dedicated Web services.
From the Web design perspective, the Web content is also
becoming more and more structured for third party developers to
access, for example, through open APIs. Consequently, such
movements will promote diverse Web access mechanisms and
other innovations, both for conventional computers and mobile
devices.
7.2 Limitations and Future Work
The research was conducted in an industry setting and optimized
for designing new systems. The constructive methodology could
restrict its scientific rigidity, both of data gathering and analyzing.
The field exploration data stretched for a span of four years; the
user behavior pattern may have significantly changed over the
time, but we did not fully examine its heterogeneity when
consolidating the user data. Due to the same reason, we do not
quantify the portions of each user activity category.
6.3.2 Design Examples
“Wiki it”, named after Wikipedia, is a design that automatically
turns a keyword into a hyperlink pointing to a relevant Web page.
By hosting a local index, a mobile device is able to annotate
keywords by comparing the message against the local database.
The idea is based on the observation that Web tasks usually
initiated from a contextual clue. For example, a received text
invitation triggered people to search for location of the meeting
point. “Wiki it” supports skipping interactions steps of launching
browser, locating Website, and entering keywords, therefore
simplifying the mobile Web interaction process.
It is of note that mobile Web activity taxonomy classifies user
activities instead of mobile Web services. A mobile Web service
can support various user activities. For example, a location
service supports Personal space extension when people mark their
location online for future reference; it enables Information
seeking when they just want to tell their current location, and
enables Communication when people reveal their location to
others.
“Mobile vibes” is a concept that regularly checks the selected set
of Web services and constantly deliver updates to the user, e.g.
from a Web mail site. The system would not require the site to
provide a mobile client or RSS feed. The concept is designed for
using the mobile Web during micro breaks. Under such contexts,
the users need to quickly catch up and switch attention to other
tasks.
We look forward to seeing further studies on mobile Web activity
taxonomy in the future. It is also of interest to examine not only
the Web, but all Internet-related activities on mobile devices. In
the next step, we are going to run further user studies and analyze
mobile Internet activities, for example, with the top-down
approach proposed by Kellar [14]. We are also interested in
innovations that facilitate user activities on the mobile Web,
personal space extension in particular.
The mobile Web inherits the legacy of managing multiple
identities from the conventional Web, but it also offers new
possibilities to solve the problem. To be more specific, contact
book can bridge multiple identities used by others; message inbox
can unify incoming data from all personal identities. In a latest
trial of “Unified inbox”, we aggregated the received content from
different personal accounts- text messages, mails, and information
feeds to one single pool. The initial evaluation proved its
usefulness but also revealed some restrictions. For example, it
should support grouping view because the different identities have
different priorities.
8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank our colleagues who helped us to conduct the user
studies, particularly Mika Rautava, Elina Vartiainen, Salla
Myllylä, Anne Vaittinen, Jan Blom, Shruti Ramiah, and Gaurabh
Mathure; three anonymous reviewers who offered valuable
suggestions, and all the participants who generously shared their
data and opinions with us.
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