Webwork
An Application Portal Vision

Target Users

Application portal technology provides an opportunity to reach beyond traditional computer users to those who have not yet taken advantage of computing capabilities in their everyday lives. Since all of the overhead of deploying, maintaining, and upgrading applications and data are taken care of by the application portal provider, end users no longer need to overcome those hurdles to explore computer applications. This shift in infrastructure can enable a whole new segment of the population to access the power of computing technology if the user interface can invite and guide them on how to use it.

People who currently use the Internet only for e-mail and web browsing are a classic example of our target users. The communication and connectivity opportunities have gotten them onto the Internet, but they’re not really using the creativity and productivity potential of their computers. Some examples of where you would find these target users include:

• Students, teachers, and parents in the K-12 education community
• Small businesses (who don’t want to maintain a computing infrastructure for themselves)
• Senior citizens (who may have more discretionary time, but aren’t familiar with technology)

We conducted a variety of focus groups among these user groups to get their perspective on how computing capabilities could be useful in their everyday lives and what problems currently prevent them from taking advantage of these capabilities. We talked with:

• Teachers at a neighborhood middle school
• Students at a neighborhood middle school
• Parents of kids who are in elementary and middle school
• Novice Internet users who use the computer primarily for e-mail and web browsing
• Residents of a senior citizen apartment community

Several of the users among the groups also worked in small businesses and represented some of the issues that arise in that setting.

Our conversations in the focus groups confirmed that computer users are often frustrated by the complexity of managing their computers. They want the computer to help them accomplish their tasks and connect them with other people. Some recurring themes emerged from these focus groups:

• Operational difficulties interfere with accomplishing their tasks
  Upgrading software, installing browser plug-ins, difficulties in opening e-mail attachments, unrecoverable system crashes, etc. were all distractions from the tasks they wanted to accomplish on the computer.

• The entry threshold for using productivity applications was too high
  While they could think of things that they’d like to do on a computer (make signs for a business, track and sort names, addresses, or orders, track finances, represent genealogy trees), most thought that productivity applications (other than word processing) were too hard to learn how to use.

• Social networks for help were desirable
  People were frustrated by the level of help that the documentation or user manuals (printed or on-line) provided. They strongly preferred getting help from another person, who could tailor the help to their needs and interact with them in a personal way. An important additional finding was that the social process of helping other people was an appealing part of the computer experience.

• Ordinary mobility calls for accessing data from anywhere
  People use computers from a variety of different sites (home, work, relatives’ and friends’ houses, public library, etc.) and would like to access their data from any of those sites. Students routinely carry floppy disks with them, and several people cited e-mailing data to themselves as a way of transferring data across their sites. Access to computer data from wireless devices is an obvious extension in the future.

• Organizing files and bookmarks was problematic
  Few people developed strategies for organizing their files, e-mail messages, or web bookmarks, so finding things later was often a problem. Several users commented that their computer desktops simply filled up with files left on the desktop until they were forced to organize them in some way. One student even created a folder named “items left on desktop” on the family’s computer and routinely shoved files that he found into that folder when he used the computer.

• Integrating communication with computing
  The lure of quick and easy communication worldwide (through e-mail, instant messaging, etc.) is one of the features attracting new users to Internet computing. Users wanted more integration of communication as part of their computing activities (e.g., interactive affirmation during on-line shopping, being able to work together on computer files, desktop conferencing)

By focusing on these target users, we hope to enable many new users to enjoy the benefits of computing technology, while also addressing some of the common complaints of traditional computer users.

  Features