Contents Feature Special Guest editorial, Knut Nordby ........................................ 1 First installations of WDM, optical ADM and optical in-line amplifiers on long-haul cable Do we need human factors in telecommunications? links in Norway, Steinar M. Svendsen ..................... 115 Knut Nordby ................................................................. 2 Consumers, not Clients – Empowering users of new technology, Frode Volden ..................................... 9 Speech quality, usability and service quality, Norman Gleiss ............................................................ 14 Status Some current issues of Human Factors in International research and standardization telecommunications, Knut Nordby ............................. 33 activities in telecommunication: Introduction, Per Hjalmar Lehne ................................................... 125 Feedback tones in public telephone networks: Human Factors work at ETSI, Donald M. Anderson .65 The ACTS Project AC215 CRABS; Cellular Radio Access for Broadband Services, The ergonomics of teleworking, John W. Bakke ........ 78 Agne Nordbotten ....................................................... 126 Human factors of videotelephony, Knut Nordby ....... 90 AC066 OPEN – Open Pan-European Network, Torodd Olsen ............................................................ 129 A tactile marker for telephone cards: – From idea to global standard, Knut Nordby ............ 98 MoMuSys, Robert Danielsen ................................... 133 The User-Interface Design process; The SINUS project, Satellite communication some new year resolutions, Simon Clatworthy ........ 107 in the UMTS, Vendela Paxal .................................... 139 Editorial office: Telektronikk Telektronikk Telenor AS, Telenor Research & Development P.O. Box 83 Volume 93 No. 3/4 - 1997 N-2007 Kjeller, Norway ISSN 0085-7130 email: [email protected] Editor: Editorial board: Ola Espvik Ole P Håkonsen, Senior Executive Vice President Tel. + 47 63 84 88 83 Oddvar Hesjedal, Vice President, Research & Development Bjørn Løken, Director Status section editor: Per Hjalmar Lehne Graphic design: Tel. + 47 63 84 88 26 Design Consult AS Editorial assistant: Layout and illustrations: Gunhild Luke Gunhild Luke, Britt Kjus, Åse Aardal Tel. + 47 63 84 86 52 Telenor Research & Development Guest editorial KNUT NORDBY The possible services that can be information society. Again, the offered by today’s telecommuni- US is leading. In 1990 Congress cation systems are staggering, and passed the Americans with Dis- new services are continually being abilities Act (ADA), and a new added. However, developers and Telecommunications Act is now operators often seem to forget that going through Congress. This leg- the end users of these sophisti- islation provides for extensive cated services belong to the rights for the users and is being species Homo sapiens, which has closely studied by other countries. not changed significantly during In Europe, there is an increasing the last 50 000 years. Although demand for Pan-European legis- today’s computer-controlled lation and a mounting pressure on telecommunication networks the Commission of the European should be able to offer services Communities (CEC) to issue fully adapted to the capabilities of Directives to achieve the same human end users better than any level of consumer protection that previous technology, the opposite US citizens enjoy. is usually the case and new services that are not specifically In the days of the state-controlled adapted to human capabilities are monopolies, the consumers had no regularly introduced. Thus, the way to influence the quality and user interface of the plain old tele- usability of services and equip- phone (POT) has actually deterio- ment. Today, consumers’ and end- rated from the time of Alexander users’ organisations participate in Graham Bell to some of today’s standardisation, thus filling a void interactive voice services. In those left by telecom operators’ who are early days users interacted with other people and any misunder- reluctant to partake in standardisation – and these consumers’ standings could be set straight right away using the most basic of organisations may soon be the ones who are calling the shots. all human capabilities – the spoken language. Actually, the service providers and the consumers have the same objectives – good usability – but they may have different If people cannot easily use technology we will increasingly see solutions as how to achieve them. that the people in the Information Society will be divided into the ‘information rich’ and the ‘information poor’. The former For various reasons industry, and the telecom industry is no group will successively improve its position in society, while exception, has come to regard good usability or the misused the latter may be excluded from important societal services and term ‘user friendliness’ as costly add-ons that offer little become increasingly dependent on others. More than 25 % of advantage in the long run. Today, this view is being turned all European citizens are either aged, disabled or both, and these on its head. Simple cost/benefit analyses will show even the do not in any way make up any marginal groups. most stubborn executives the great economical and commercial advantage of good usability: When NYNEX, the great US East- During the last ten years a wave of liberalisation, de-regulation coast based telephone company, managed to shave just three and privatisation of the state-owned telecommunication monop- seconds average off each inquiry transaction, they saved them- olies has swept across Europe and other parts of the world. selves hiring more than 500 operators. These liberalised, privatised telecommunication markets need new regulation, and a wave of re-regulation and legislation is The bottom line of all this is Human Factors or Ergonomics, the now under way: the most liberalised market of them all, the US science of designing good user interfaces. The following nine market, is also the most regulated market to secure basic articles in this Feature Section of Telektronikk are devoted to services, just trading and fair competition. various perspectives of Human Factors in Telecommunications. These range from simple tactile identifiers on telephone cards to It is to these re-regulated markets that user-groups, special empowering users of new technology; from sound quality in the interest groups and consumers’ organisations are moving in, telephone to the special requirements of tele-working; from the demanding proper services and equipment. The trade journals basic tones (line signals) we hear in the handset to the intri- now print comparative tests of similar products, and these tests cacies of using video-telephones, and from the historic origins review usability; i.e. how easy is it to use, how long does it take of human factors in telephony (did Alexander Graham Bell to learn to use it, is it easy to make a fatal mistake. And think about it?) to a review of contemporary issues. A brief purchasing decisions are increasingly made on the basis of such overview like this can only scratch the surface of a large field, reviews. Prospective customers do not only look at prices – ease but hopefully this may inspire some readers to dip deeper into of use has become an important decision factor – a product with this fascinating topic. a bad usability mark is not going to make it in the marketplace. Thus, manufacturers and service providers are going to need all the human factors expertise they can get to keep a competitive advantage. On the other side we have the legislators. Society cannot sit still and watch large groups of citizens being left outside the Telektronikk 3/4.1997 1 Do we need human factors in telecommunications? KNUT NORDBY NORWEGIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS MUSEUM NORWEGIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS MUSEUM The changing user interface When the telephone was in its infancy, the user interface was the simplest of all times: You just lifted the handset off- hook and gave a small crank a turn or two to alert the other party, and when the call was answered you could start the conversation. This was in the days when only two and two telephones were con- nected together (e.g. between the home and the shop, or between the mansion Figure 1 Norwegian telephone set from Figure 3 Norwegian telephone set from house and the porter’s lodge). However, 1893 with inductor crank. This telephone 1931 with rotating number dial. This was the idea of connecting several telephones set worked with the simple user interface the first ‘modern’ telephone with inte- together via a switchboard or exchange from the early days of telephony. The grated hook switch. It was designed by was soon realised, making it possible to earpiece on the handset can be moved to Johan Christian Bjerknes of Elektrisk reach many people, thus making the tele- adapt to ‘small and large heads’, Bureau, Norway (with some finishing phone a much more important communi- a simple ergonomic consession to user touches by the artist Jean Heiberg), but it cation instrument. You still only needed variability was to be produced in Sweden by L.M. to lift the handset off hook and give the Ericsson, who had acquired a majority of little crank a turn or two to alert the oper- Elektrisk Bureau shares ator (in some systems you had to press the hook a couple of times), and when the exchange answered you simply asked As the telephone networks grew, opera- the telephone book had arrived.