Who are the people that experience soft usability problems?

Abstract

The existing taxonomy of user experience needs to be redefined because of fast technology development in consumer electronic market. Design for all seems prevalent in the field of product design. However, there are ever more doubts about a one-fits-all policy considering the increasing diversity of users and the increasing number of complaints. In our previous studies a taxonomy of 'soft' usability problems related to the use of electronic products has been made. The question posed in this paper is how people behave in the actual use of annoying user-unfriendly products. An experiment was conducted with 33 South Koreans and 23 Americans. A radio alarm clock and a MP3 player were chosen to induce soft usability problems. A questionnaire was used to measure the participants' characteristics. Overall, this study indicates that product operation and user behavior are correlated with specific user characteristics such as age, gender, and culture.