Abstract
In order for companies to effectively use customization as a design strategy, there should be understanding on what users would like to customize and why. This study explores the use of customization features of sports watch in order to assess the extent of customization, and to identify reasons for customization in this context. Survey data from 100 users of a sports watch were analyzed to understand how they use the different customization features: general preferences, functionality and appearance. The findings show that although the users vary in the use of customization, they state similar reasons for customization: control, ease-of-use, increased effectiveness, and better fit to personal preferences. The motivation to customize in this context is for the most part related to autonomy: to the sense of control the user has by having the tool to adapt the product according to own preferences, wants and needs.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Oulasvirta, A., Blom, J.O.: Motivations in personalisation behaviour. Interacting with Computers 20, 1–16 (2007)
Weightman, D., McDonagh, D.: People are doing it for themselves. In: Proc. DPPI 2003, pp. 34–39. ACM Press, New York (2003)
Sunikka, A., Bragge, J.: Applying text-mining to personalization and customization research literature – Who, what and where? Expert Systems with Applications 39(11), 10049–10058 (2012)
Sung, J., Grinter, R.E., Christensen, H.I.: “Pimp My Roomba": designing for personalization. In: Proc. CHI 2009, pp. 193–196. ACM Press, New York (2009)
Ansari, A., Mela, C.F.: E-customization. J. of Marketing Research XL, 131–145 (May 2003)
Häkkila, J., Chatfield, C.: Personal customisation of mobile phones: a case study. In: Proc. NordiCHI 2006, pp. 409–412. ACM Press, New York (2006)
Ventä, L., Isomursu, M., Ahtinen, A., Ramiah, S.: My phone is part of my soul. In: Proc. UBICOMM 2008, pp. 311–317. IEEE Computer Society (2008)
Tossell, C.C., Kortum, P., Shepard, C., Rahmati, A., Zhong, L.: An empirical analysis of smartphone personalisation: measurement and user variability. Behaviour & Information Technology, iFirst, 1–16 (2012)
Blom, J.O., Monk, A.F.: Theory of personalization of appearance: why users personalize their pcs and mobile phones. Hum.-Comput. Interact. 18(3), 193–228 (2003)
Page, S.R., Johnsgard, T.J., Albert, Allen, C.D.: User customization of a word processor. In: Proc. CHI 1996, pp. 340–346. ACM Press, New York (1996)
Marathe, S., Sundar, S.S.: What drives customization?: control or identity? In: Proc. CHI 2011. ACM Press, New York (2011)
Blom, J.: Personalization—a taxonomy. In: Ext. Abstracts CHI 2000, pp. 313–314. ACM Press (2000)
Monk, A.F., Blom, J.O.: A theory of personalisation of appearance: quantitative evaluation of qualitatively derived data. Behavior and Information Technology 26(3), 237–246 (2007)
Suunto, http://www.suunto.fi/us/en/products/Outdoor_Sports_Instruments/suunto-ambit/suunto-ambit-black-hr
Deci, E.L., Ryan, R.M.: The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behaviour. Psychological Inquiry 11, 227–268 (2000)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Nurkka, P. (2013). “Nobody Other Than Me Knows What I Want”: Customizing a Sports Watch. In: Kotzé, P., Marsden, G., Lindgaard, G., Wesson, J., Winckler, M. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013. INTERACT 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8120. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40498-6_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40498-6_30
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-40497-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-40498-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)