research-article

What does it mean for a system to be useful?: an exploratory study of usefulness

Authors:

Craig M. MacDonald,

Michael E. AtwoodAuthors Info & Claims

DIS '14: Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems

Pages 885 - 894

https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598600

Published: 21 June 2014 Publication History

Abstract

HCI has always focused on designing useful and usable interactive systems, but usability has dominated the field while research on usefulness has been largely absent. With user experience (UX) emerging as a dominant paradigm, it is necessary to consider the meaning of usefulness for modern computing contexts. This paper describes the results of an exploratory study of usefulness and its relation to contextual and experiential factors. The results show that a system's usefulness is shaped by the context in which it is used, usability is closely linked to usefulness, usefulness may have both pragmatic and hedonic attributes, and usefulness is critical in defining users' overall evaluation of a system (i.e., its goodness). We conclude by discussing the implications of this research and describing plans for extending our understanding of usefulness in other settings.

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Index Terms

What does it mean for a system to be useful?: an exploratory study of usefulness
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

DIS '14: Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems

June 2014

1102 pages

ISBN:9781450329026

DOI:10.1145/2598510

General Chairs:
Ron Wakkary
Simon Fraser University
,
Steve Harrison
Virginia Tech
,
Program Chairs:
Carman Neustaedter
Simon Fraser University
,
Shaowen Bardzell
Indiana University
,
Eric Paulos
UC Berkeley

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Published: 21 June 2014

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June 21 - 25, 2014

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DIS '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 107 of 402 submissions, 27%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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