Providing an Integrated User Experience of Networked Media, Devices, and Services through End-User Composition

Abstract. Networked devices for the storage and rendering of digital media are rapidly becoming ubiquitous in homes throughout the industrialized world. Existing approaches to home media control will not suffice for the new capabilities offered by these digitally networked media devices. In particular, the piecemeal interaction provided by current devices, services, and applications will continue to engender frustration among users and will slow adoption of these technologies and the more sophisticated pervasive technologies that will surely follow them into the domestic environment. To address this challenge, we present OSCAR, an application that supports flexible and generic control of devices and services in near-future home media networks. It allows monitoring and manipulation of connections between devices, and allows users to construct reusable configurations to streamline frequently performed activities. A lab-based user study with 9 users of varied backgrounds showed that people could use OSCAR to configure and control a realistic and fully operational home media network, but that they struggled when constructing certain types of reusable configurations. The results of the study show that users were enthusiastic about adopting a system like OSCAR into their own media-related practices, but that further research and development is needed to make such systems truly useful

Factors influencing the formation of a user's perceptions and use of a DSS software innovation

Understanding how users form perceptions of a software innovation would help software designers, implementers and users in their evaluation, selection, implementation and on-going use of software. However, with the exception of some recent work, there is little research examining how a user forms his or her perceptions of an innovation over time. To address this research need, we report on the experiences of a health planner using a DSS software tool for health planning over a 12-month period. Using diffusion theory as outlined by Rogers, we interpret the user's perceptions of the software following Rogers' perceived characteristics of the innovation. Furthermore, we show how our user justifies her attitudes toward the technology using 5 important factors during 3-, 6- and 12-month interviews: stage of adoption, implementation processes, organizational factors, subjective norms, and user competence. Results are compared with key IS research in these areas, and the implications of these findings on the diffusion of decision support systems are discussed

Integrated Business Process Management: Using State-Based Business Rules to Communicate between Disparate Stakeholders

We need to put more emphasis on managing the communication between different types of stakeholders and in particular we need to use diagrammatic constructs that support that communication process. This paper describes a state-based approach to capturing business rules that has been tested with different stakeholders in several business process applications. The examples provided in this paper show the benefits of using this notation as a means of communicating between three different groups of stakeholders