20100922 - Lee, Usability of collaboration technologies

Usability of collaboration technologies by Lee, Minseok, Ph.D., Purdue University, 2007 , 247 pages; AAT 3291111   My Interest: 1)      instrument = UET. 2)      online survey. 3)      factor analysis resulted in 22 refined items with an eight factor model for usability of collaboration. 4)      assess the external and predictive validity of the instrument.   Action:  to read specific parts in future.   The objective of this study is to develop and validate an instrument that evaluates the usability of collaboration technologies, for synchronous and asynchronous work, as well as for distant and collocated collaborative work.   Methodology   An instrument based on the dimensions of usability and general group tasks was developed and tested via an online survey (N=183). A factor analysis resulted in 22 refined items with an eight factor model for usability of collaboration, which explained 63.1% of common variance. The eight factors are Communication Efficiency, Communication Effectiveness, Sender Awareness, Coordination Efficiency, Coordination History, Member Role Awareness, Cooperation Effectiveness, and Cooperation Efficiency.   The concept of collaboration index was proposed to measure the overall fit between technology support and task requirement, which is a weighted sum of the eight factor indices.   Results Discussion   The ANOVA results showed no significant differences of the eight factors across gender, academic background, job, and the different levels of experience with collaboration technologies. However, there were significant cultural differences between Korean and American subjects. Korean subjects needed more support during collaboration than American subjects in the three factors of Coordination History, Communication Effectiveness, and Member Role Awareness.   Methodology   An experiment was conducted to assess the external and predictive validity of the instrument. Seventy-five subjects, in groups of three, participated in the experiment.   Discussion   The use of the instrument for usability evaluation is discussed in both formative and summative evaluations, with guidelines for designing collaboration technologies considering American and Korean markets.   CHAPTER 4 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF AN INSTRUMENT TO EVALUATE USABILITY OF COLLABORATIVE WORK 4.1 Method 4.2 Development of Instrument 4.3 Participants 4.4 Procedure 4.5 Results and Discussion 4.5.1 Overview 4.5.2 Factor Analysis 4.5.3 Sub Group Comparative Analysis 4.5.4 Task Sensitivity 4.5.5 Discussion   CHAPTER 5 EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF SURVEY DATA 5.1 Methodology 5.1.1 Overview 5.1.2 Subjects 5.1.3 Tasks 5.1.4 Technologies 5.1.5 Independent Variables 5.1.6 Dependent Variables 5.1.7 Experimental Design 5.1.8 Procedure 5.2 Results and Discussion 5.2.1 Overview 5.2.2 Descriptive Statistics of Dependent Variables 5.2.3 Association of Collaboration Index with the Dependent Variables 5.2.4 Predictive Validity of Collaboration Component Index 5.2.5 Task Sensitivity 5.3 Discussion