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ETSI DEG 202 417 V 0.0.20 (2005-11-17)
DRAFT ETSI Guide
Human Factors;
User education guidelines for
mobile terminals and e-services
ETSI DEG 202 417 V 0.0.20 (2005-11-17)
4
Reference
<DEG/HF-00070>
Keywords
< e-Inclusion, Guidelines, Human Factors, MMI, Technical communicator, Terminals, User guide, User education, User experience, User manual, User Interface >
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Contents
Intellectual Property Rights 6
Foreword (B) 6
Introduction (B) 6
1 Scope (All) 9
2 References (B+All) 9
3 Definitions, symbols and abbreviations (B) 12
3.1 Definitions 12
3.2 Abbreviations 13
4 The role of user education in ICT products and services (MB) 13
4.1 The increasing importance of user education 13
4.2 User education during the product life cycle (PP) 15
4.3 Legal and safety considerations 16
4.4 Cost-benefit trade-offs and current industry practices 16
5 Generic guidelines 17
5.1 Requirements on content 17
5.1.1 General requirements 18
5.1.2 Existing guidelines 18
5.2 Content 18
5.2.1 General requirements on content 18
5.3 General e-service setup requirements 19
5.4 General requirements on development processes 19
5.4.1 Content management 20
5.4.2 Evaluation 20
5.5 Localisation 20
5.5. Guidelines for translation management 21
5.5.1 Main principles 21
5.5.2 General language guidelines 24
5.5.3 Translation validation 25
5.6 Terminology 26
5.7 Illustrations 26
5.7.1 General 26
5.7.2 Existing guidelines and recommendations 27
6 Specific guidelines for paper-based user guides (MF) 28
6.1 General 28
6.1.2 The printing process 28
6.1.3 Formats 28
6.2 Formal structure 29
6.2.1 General guidelines 29
6.3 Consistency and logical structure 30
6.4 Main and secondary guides 30
6.5 Legal and regulatory requirements on safety and security 31
6.5.1 General 31
6.5.2 Existing guidelines 31
7 Specific guidelines for terminal-based user guides (MF) 32
7.1 General 32
7.2 Specific guidelines 32
7.2.2 Help texts 32
7.1.3 Demonstrations 33
7.1.4 Interactive tutorials and avatars 33
8 Specific guidelines for Web-based user guides (MT) 34
8.1 Adavantages and disadvantages of Web based information 34
8.1.1 Advantages of screen-based content 35
8.1.2 Disadvantages of screen-based content 35
8.2 Writing for the screen 36
8.3 Organising screen-based content 36
8.2.1 Text 36
8.2.2 Space 36
8.2.3 Graphics 36
8.3 Updates 37
8.4 Text-based, tutorials, try-me’s? 37
9 Specific guidelines for user guides on portable media (MT) 37
9.1 Advantages of porable media-based information 37
10 Specific guidelines for audio user guides (MB) 38
10.1 The potiential of audio user guides 38
10.2 Guidelines for the design of audio user guides 38
11 Other ways of providing user education (MB) 39
11.1 User groups and forums 39
12 User education and design for all (MB+BvN) 39
12.1 User education for young and older users 39
12.2 User education for visually-impaired users 40
12.3 User education for hearing-impaired users 40
12.4 User education for users with cognitive impairments 40
12.5 User education for users with communication impairments 40
13 Usability evaluation of user guidance (MB?) 40
13.1 Background 40
13.1.1 General 40
13.1.2 Usability and accessibility of user guidance 41
13.2 Methods 42
13.2.1 General 42
13.2.2 Test tasks 42
13.2.3 Materials 42
13.2.4 Sample 43
13.2.5 Analysis and reporting 43
13.2.6 Conclusion and guidelines 44
14 Other issues 44
14.1 Handling operator-specific needs in user guidance (MB) 44
14.2 Special issues for guidance on e-services (BvN) 44
14.3 Current research on user guides (All) 44
14.4 The future of user education (PP) 44
Annex A (normative): Collective table of all guidelines (BvN) 46
A.1 Collective table of all guidelines 46
Annex B (informative): Principles of user education 47
B.1 “Know thy user” 47
B.1.1 Segmentation of the user by new technology adoption style 47
B.1.2 Other ways to user segmentation 48
B.1.2.1 By region 48
B.1.2.2 By gender 48
B.1.2.3 By age 48
B.1.2.4 Other type of segmentation 48
B.2 Factors influencing the usage of user education supports 49
B.2.1 User education support generic overview 49
B.2.2 Factor influencing the usage of user education 51
B.2.2.1 Offer related influence factors 51
B.2.2.2 User related influence factors 51
B.2.3 Usage behaviour toward documentation 52
B.3 User education during the life cycle 53
Annex C (informative): Editorial terminology- for drafting use only! 54
History 54
Intellectual Property Rights
IPRs essential or potentially essential to the present document may have been declared to ETSI. The information pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, is publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be found in ETSISR000314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to ETSI in respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the ETSI Web server (http://webapp.etsi.org/IPR/home.asp).
Pursuant to the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation, including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not referenced in ETSISR000314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web server) which are, or may be, or may become, essential to the present document.
Foreword (B)
This ETSI Guide (EG) is being produced by ETSI Technical Committee Human Factors, Specialist Task Force 285, during March 2005- September 2006.
The EG is being produced in coordination with DEG 202 416, “Human Factors; User Interfaces; Setup Procedure Design Guidelines for Mobile Terminals and e-Services”.
The ETSI Membership Voting Procedure is foreseen to take place during September-November 2006; the published version is anticipated for December 2006.
Intended users of the present document are technical communicators, user experience and interaction design professionals, developers of mobile terminals, e-services and applications, mobile network and system providers, terminal approvers and standard writers and developers.
Introduction (B)
Information and communication technologies (ICT) play a key role in the everyday life of many people and mobile communication services are a mass market (in 2004, at least 80% of EU citizens were using them) [25].
New applications and e-services are increasingly used to perform necessary or entertaining tasks. Connectivity and interoperability between telecommunications networks, personal computing, the Internet and ever-smarter mobile devices and e-services offer enormous potential for improving life, if used as intended and used by all. Users who cannot understand and learn how to efficiently use their devices, e-services and integrated or additionally offered applications will be permanantly excluded from the eSociety. Ensuring access to mobile communication for all is a common goal of vendors, operators, service providers, user associations, as well as policy makers, often talking about the creation of the e-inclusive information society.
In the past, the question of the “digital divide” defined the “haves” and “have-nots” mainly in economic terms, dividing those who can afford new technology from those who cannot. Technological progress in network and infrastructure deployment and manufacturing and economy-of-scale effects in household availability and service provision make access to e-services affordable to the largest proportion of the European society. In the mean time, a new facet of a possible “digital divide” becomes visible, namely the one that is related to the comprehension of how to use new devices and e-services. This latter aspect of the “digital divide” has direct economic and societal consequences as the uptake of mobile e-services will only be at a successful level if the new devices and e-services can actually be accessed, set up and used by the European citizens.
It has to be recognized that many existing e-services (both broadband and narrowband) cannot be fully utilized by many users due to difficulties in either installing and configuring e-services on their devices or understanding the full potential of these e-services. These obstacles to a full use of fixed and mobile broadband ICT e-services are even more emphasized by a number of developments in society:
· Changing population demographics: The number of elderly people and people with special needs is growing rapidly, requiring additional support and dedicated efforts for those unable to cope with every day’s technology. In many countries, more than 20% of the population is or will soon be 65 years or older.
· Population mobility: As more and more people access e-services from mobile devices only offering limited user interface capabilities, it is required to optimize the user experience of terminals with focus on service access and use of the accessed e-services themselves.
· Increasing user expectations: Users are getting used to plug-and-play systems with fully configured components. Similar, natural expectations are automatically projected to mobile e-services and must therefore be addressed.
· Advanced e-services deployed with a social interest (e.g. telecare services) without a certain level of pre-requisites these often advanced e-services build on (e.g. comfort of use, development of a trusted relation, basic skills and familiarity), such e-services will not be able to launch.
· Access to e-services by all: In order to close the accessibility gap between technology-aware and conservative or less skilled user groups, it is necessary to offer access to e-services for everyone.
· Increasing variability in the segmentation of customers: from children at the age of 6 or 7 years to senior users aged over 80, members of the entire community will develop specific reasons and request access to broadband e-services.
· User’s inability and lack of interest to cover important (but in a normal, user-centred, functionality-oriented scenario, less relevant) aspects of their communication such as security aspects: according to recent reports (Gartner Group Conference 2004: IT Security Summit), more than two thirds of the successful hacker attacks on wireless clients are due to unsatisfactory configuration of access points and clients.
· Human resource limitations: the complexity of mobile e-services exceeds the ability of many users while personal assistance and support cannot be easily offerred at an affordable cost.
As the hurdle to using remote e-services is the highest for first-time users with limited skills, experiences and previous knowledge, it is required that first access to e-services is simplified as far as possible and clear guidance on how to configure and use a service, as well as a description of features and limitations of specific e-services are made available.
From the perspective of digitally networked homes and society and in order to be able to make proper use of the smart solutions and devices deployed, it becomes more important than ever that users are enabled to understand access and use the offered capabilities. Future architectures assume that users will select service providers independently of the access mechanism, roam between delivery networks, based upon their subscription profiles and define their service needs with regard to the quality, security, privacy and cost of the service. We believe this goal is nearly impossible to achieve, if the generic user knowledge level is not increased and the complexity of set-up and configuration procedures not reduced.
Improved user education helps end users to discover, understand, access and make use of new and existing e-services. Consequently, this also benefits service and network operators through increased service uptake and society, as a whole, by ensuring improved access to mobile information and communications technologies (ICT) for consumers who might otherwise be excluded (e.g. elderly users or users with impairments).
The present document introduces and analyses the most important areas and issues of relevance to user education and provides a clear set of guidelines on how user instructions ought to be provided, taking into account the requirement of different user groups (e.g. young, elderly, disabled and less literate users) and the possibilities offered by different media. The guidelines have a practical focus on the most common difficulties and problems faced by ICT users. The guidelines provided take into consideration the constraints faced by the ICT industry in the provision of user education e-services.
The present document provides generic guidelines covering the content and development and validation process of user education material. In addition, it provides generic guidelines applicable to the terminology and illustrations used.
This is followed by the provision of specific guidelines, applicable to paper-based user guides, terminal-based user guides, Web-based user guides, user guides on CD-ROM, audio user guides and other ways of providing information. In the late chapters, user education and design for all, the evaluation of user education and other issues including operator specific issues, issues for guidance on e-services, research on user guides and the future of user education are addressed.
In Normative Appendix A, a listing of all design guidelines previously introduced in the document is provided (no new guidelines are introduced). These carry an indication about their application area and the clause they can be found in the present document, together with further details and information.