User Experience Studies of Personal Cloud Storage Services
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PARISA POUR REZAEI USER EXPERIENCE STUDIES OF PERSONAL CLOUD STORAGE SERVICES Master of Science thesis Examiner: Prof. Kaisa Väänänen Supervisor: MSc Jarmo Palviainen Examiner and topic approved by the Council of the Faculty of Computing and Electerical Engineering on 14th January 2015 i ABSTRACT PARISA POUR REZAEI: User Experience Studies of Personal Cloud Storage Services Tampere University of technology Master of Science Thesis, 78 pages, 31 Appendix pages September 2015 Master’s Degree Programme in Information Technology Major: User Experience Examiner: Professor Kaisa Väänänen Keywords: user experience, design, cloud storage services Nowadays, individuals’ data is at their disposal in real time from any device with the assistance of cloud storage services (CSS, e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud and Google Drive). Success of cloud computing in an enterprise ultimately depends on delivering user experience (UX) which delivers business applications anytime and anywhere, and on any device that user prefers. CSSs empower new kind of collaborations between individuals and have fundamental impact on how we organize and share our data. Despite an increasing popularity of cloud computing among researchers and academia, and vast variety of CSSs offered to the end users by cloud computing, the literature on UX studies of these services is quite restricted. This master’s thesis studies UX of different CSSs (with focus on Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud) based on 10 interviews and 65 Web survey responses. We analysed the data qualitatively and quantitatively. The results consist of reasons for the most positive and negative experiences and descriptions of current habits and motivations of the CSS users. As the current use of CSSs is still mostly individual, we also investigated the potential of taking the UX of CSSs to the next level by integrating different social features to current CSSs. We conclude the thesis by explaining the significance of various Cloud UX aspects in the context of CSSs and proposing design implications for enhancing UX of CSSs. ii PREFACE This M.Sc. thesis work was carried out during year 2014 and spring 2015 at the Department of Pervasive Computing at Tampere University of Technology, Finland in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Master of Science degree in User Experience. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my supervisors Professor Kaisa Väänänen, and MSc Jarmo Palviainen for providing me with constant inspiration, motivation, and invaluable suggestions and advice during my master thesis. Thank you for possessing immense patience and understanding and assisting me to complete this thesis work. Especial thanks to my beloved brother for his invaluable advice and support for every step of my life. Thank you for being there always for me. Without your non-stop support, non of these achievements would have been possible for me. I also thank my lovely sister-in-low Mahdieh who is always motivating me by her positive attitude. Last but not least, this thesis is dedicated to my parents whose unconditional support and love have always been with me in all stages of my life, and my unbelievably supportive and patient husband Joosua Viitamäki. You are the best in the world. Tampere, September 2015 Parisa Pour Rezaei iii CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background and Motivation ........................................................................... 1 1.2 Objective and Research Questions ................................................................. 3 1.3 Research Methodology................................................................................... 3 1.4 Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................... 4 2. THE KEY CONCEPTS AND USER EXPERIENCE RELATED MODELS AND EVALUATION METHODS ............................................................................................ 5 2.1 Key Concepts ................................................................................................. 5 2.1.1 User Experience and Usability......................................................... 5 2.1.2 User Experience from ISO Standard................................................ 6 2.1.3 Quality.............................................................................................. 7 2.1.4 Wow Experience .............................................................................. 8 2.2 User Experience Models ................................................................................ 9 2.2.1 Hassenzahl & Tractinsky’s Model of User Experience ................. 10 2.2.2 Hassenzahl‘s Model of User Experience ....................................... 10 2.2.3 Mahlke’s Components of User Experience ................................... 11 2.2.4 Summary ........................................................................................ 12 2.3 User Experience Evaluation Methods .......................................................... 13 2.3.1 Web Survey .................................................................................... 13 2.3.2 AttrakDiff2 Questionnaire ............................................................. 14 2.3.3 UX Curve ....................................................................................... 15 3. RELATED WORK ................................................................................................. 17 3.1 User Experience of the Cloud ...................................................................... 18 3.1.1 Privacy, Trust and Security of Cloud Services .............................. 19 3.1.2 Wow Experience of Cloud Services .............................................. 21 3.2 User Experience of Cloud Storage Services ................................................ 21 3.2.1 Privacy, Trust and Security of Cloud Storage Services ................. 22 3.2.2 Data Synchronization and Sharing................................................. 23 3.2.3 Identifiers ....................................................................................... 24 3.2.4 Interplay Between Quality of System and User Experience .......... 25 3.2.5 Context of Use ............................................................................... 26 3.3 Human Psychological Needs as Components of User Experience .............. 28 3.4 Summary and Research Gap ........................................................................ 30 4. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON USER EXPERIENCE OF CLOUD STORAGE SERVICES ...................................................................................................................... 32 4.1 User Interviews ............................................................................................ 32 4.1.1 Participants and Procedure ............................................................. 33 4.1.2 Materials ........................................................................................ 33 4.1.3 Data Analysis ................................................................................. 35 4.2 Web Survey .................................................................................................. 36 iv 4.2.1 Participants and Procedure ............................................................. 36 4.2.2 Materials ........................................................................................ 36 4.2.3 Data Analysis ................................................................................. 37 5. RESULTS ............................................................................................................... 39 5.1 Usage of Cloud Storage Services from Different Platfprms ........................ 39 5.2 Pragmatic Qualities of Cloud Storage Services ........................................... 40 5.2.1 Motivations to Start Using a Certain Cloud Storage Service ........ 40 5.2.2 Reasons for the Most Positive User Experience with Cloud ......... 42 5.2.3 Reasons for the Most Negative User Experience .......................... 44 5.3 Hedonic Qualities of Cloud Storage Services .............................................. 49 5.4 Emotional User Experience of Cloud Storage Services ............................... 52 5.4.1 Evaluation of Fulfillment of Psychological Needs within Cloud Storage Services ........................................................................................... 52 5.4.2 Evaluation of Users’ Feelings about Cloud Storage Services ....... 54 5.5 Long-term User Experience ......................................................................... 57 5.5.1 Trends of the Curves ...................................................................... 57 5.5.2 Reasons for the Change of User Experience.................................. 58 6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ....................................................................... 61 6.1 Summary of the Findings ............................................................................. 61 6.2 Discussion .................................................................................................... 63 6.3 Suggestions to Enhance User Experience of Cloud Storage Services ......... 64 6.3.1 Make the Synchronization Process Visible .................................... 64 6.3.2 Improve Hedonic User Experience of Cloud Storage Services ..... 65 6.3.3 Improve User’s Sense of Security and Privacy in Cloud Storage Services