Determining Causes and Severity of End-User Frustration (2002)

Abstract

While computers are beneficial to individuals and society, frequently, users encounter frustrating experiences when using computers. This study attempts to measure, through 111 participants, the frequency, cause, and the level of severity of frustrating experiences. The data showed that frustrating experiences happen on a frequent basis. The applications in which the frustrating experiences happened most frequently were web browsing, e-mail, and word processing. The most-cited causes of frustrating experiences were error messages, dropped network connections, long download times, and hard-to-find features. The time lost due to frustrating experiences ranged from 47-53% of time spent on a computer depending on the location and study method. After discarding extreme cases the time lost was still above 38%. These disturbing results should be a basis for future study.