An Integrated Model for the Quality in Use (QiU) of Mobile Government Systems

Abstract

Mobile government systems have become a very important channel of government services delivery to citizens, business, and other governmental organizations. However, the Quality in Use of mobile systems that is the capability of the system to enable its users to achieve their goals with effectiveness, productivity, safety and satisfaction is one of the challenges that face the usage of these systems to the maximum potential. The Quality in Use of mobile user interfaces need to be explored in order to produce mobile systems that could be used by users optimally to improve the end user experience with these systems.

The research presented in this thesis proposes an integrated model of assessing the Quality in Use of mobile government systems. The model introduces usability, user's acceptance of mobile systems, and users’ experience with the system as attributes that determine the Quality in Use of mobile government systems. The model incorporates constructs from the ISO usability standards, the Technology Acceptance Model, the Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile devices, and End-User Satisfaction theory into a single framework.

The model was tested and verified empirically based on the data collected from the actual measures of the effectiveness and the efficiency of four representative tasks of a high fidelity prototype designed for Mobile Civil Registry System. The prototype was designed and refined using the ISO human centered design model of interactive systems. The data of the subjective measures of the factors Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU), Perceived Ease Of Adoption (PEOA), Satisfaction, Trust, Intention To Use (ITU), Taking Into Use (TIU), Acceptance and User eXperience (UX) were also collected and analyzed.

The results showed that Acceptance to use the mobile government system was related to the usability of the system through the significant relation between satisfaction with the system and the effectiveness of some of he tasks. Satisfaction, PEOU and the effectiveness of some of the tasks were proved to be requirements for UX. PU of the mobile system in terms of content and value, PEOU of the system and the device, PEOA, ITU and TIU were the main factors that influenced the decision to accept using the mobile government system.

Trust was proved to be an important factor in intention to use m-government systems (ITU). The result was not surprising given the fact that the system deals with personal data of individuals. Security of personal information such as identification card number, address and contact data was of great concern to most of the participants.

To study the influence of individual differences in the usage of mobile information system, the model introduced age, gender, educational level, mobile usage duration, and mobile usage profile of the participants as external factors in the model. The influence of these differences in some of the factors of the model was examined. The results supported some of the stated hypotheses and pointed out the differences due to individual attributes.

The results of this research have several implications. The significant positive relationship between trust and usage intention suggested that trust plays an important role in influencing individuals’ intention to use the mobile system. Therefore, system designers must ensure a private and secure system to gain users’ confidence in using mobile government systems.

In terms of limitations, the controlled setting of the experiments eliminated the effect of the mobile context in the results. If the mobile context was introduced as an external factors in the model this may yield different results.

Security was of a great concern to most of the participants, so further studies in the future to investigate the effect of security in acceptance are needed. Future studies are needed to extend the model to cover these issues.

The supported hypotheses for constructs for some of the tasks raised the question of the influence of task complexity on performance. This needs to be investigated as well.

The practical implications of the thesis that designers of mobile systems need to focus on these factors to improve the QiU of mobile system. Designers of mobile systems also need to consider the importance individual difference in using mobile systems.