WP7D2 Report on user acceptance, use cases and on the characteristics of the services, e.g. use cases that appeal to users ¿ Conjoint analysis (COMESI)

This report provides the first step in testing the end-user interest for the service concepts developed in the Comesi project. In the project, five use cases on converged communication services have been defined. However, their added value has not yet been tested with actual prospective consumers. In this deliverable, we examine if users are really willing to adopt Comesi types of services and, if so, whether or not issues like reliability and security impact their decision to do so. We test user interest in Comesi service features using conjoint analysis. Conjoint analysis is a sophisticated, non-obtrusive way of measuring the utility of various dimensions and characteristics of service concepts, and is especially popular in marketing and product design. The basic idea is to present people with contrived hypothetical situations. These situations, scenarios, vignettes, or cases are developed by combining characteristics of situations that will play a role in the decision making process for instance in adopting, using or paying for a service. As a first step in this deliverable, we derive five core service features from the Comesi use cases: ¿ File sharing ¿ Switching devices during a communication session ¿ Switching media during a communication session ¿ Group communication ¿ Presence / availability We construct eight use scenarios (conjoint cards) based on these five elements, which are subsequently rated on relevant criteria by respondents. The conjoint survey was filled out 82 respondents in Netherlands, France and Spain. Results indicate that while users are highly interested in ¿presence¿ features, they hardly appreciate other service elements like ¿switching devices¿ and ¿media during communication sessions¿, ¿file sharing¿ and ¿group communication¿. Still, for any of these services, reliability, security and interoperability are valued as important requirements. On the positive side, about 2/3 of the respondents expects to use the services within one year, while they are willing to pay, on average, 2 Euros per month. More research is needed to analyze whether a viable business case can be made based on these numbers. Besides the conjoint questions that give insight in the usefulness of each individual Comesi service feature, we also asked respondents to indicate their interest in the service features assuming that they are bundled. We find that respondents do not see the added value of bundled Comesi service features. As a limitation of the study, it should be kept in mind that the sample is not representative for any population. The focus of this research was to look into the services attributes that play a role in the assessment of the service on a number of criteria amongst other likelihood to use and willingness to pay. The focus in this study was directly on the characteristics of the service, it did result in relevant insights, but there is a clear need to understand behavior in context. The fact that the fit in day-to-day routines did lead to some significant differences between the sub-samples is an indication that we have to be aware of local and national idiosyncrasies. Also the fact that sharing characteristics are not as dominated as would have been expected, raise the question if direct situations shouldn¿t have a more prominent place in research in to adoption and use of new mobile services.