Usage and user experience of communication before and during rendezvous

This paper reports a field evaluation of the mobile phone as a ‘package’ of device and services. The evaluation compares 44 university students’ usage and user experience of communication before and during rendezvous. During a rendezvous, students rated many aspects of the experience of phone use less favourably than before a rendezvous. This impairment of experience is attributed to the cumulative effect of various adverse factors that occur more often during rendezvous incomplete network coverage, environmental noise, multiple task performance, time pressure, conflict with social norms, and conflict with preferred life-paths. Also, during a rendezvous, students were more likely to use the telephone, less likely to use e-mail, but equally likely to use text messaging, compared to before a rendezvous. This change in usage is attributed to the need to exchange and ground information almost instantly during a rendezvous. Implications for the design of 3G phones are discussed.