A Human Sensibility Ergonomic Establishment of Customer-Satisfying Strategy for a Multimedia Telecommunication System

멀티미디어 통신시스템을 대상으로한 사용자 만족 전략의 감성공학적 수립

The primary objective of this research was to establish and quantify the relationship between the physical degradation factors of multimedia telecommunications (teleconferencing) system and Subjective human perception. The research was performed in two stages. A field survey of the real users and pilot experiments were carried out in the first stage to determine customers' major complaints and corresponding system degradation factors. A prototype teleconferencing simulator was developed in two separate sound-treated chambers equipped with audio/video equipment running under a custom-developed software program. In the second stage, simulation experiments using the semantic differential methodology were performed utilizing 26 paid participants (14 college students and 12 housewives). The results indicated that audio/video synchronization and the frame rate were the main system factors for both subject groups, but different pattern of factors' influence was found according to the group, implying that the system configuration would hopefully accommodate the characteristics of the end users. Also, a single quality index, developed for system preference, was revealed to be highly correlated with user satisfaction. The results provide some fundamental data on the human subjective perception of multimedia telecommunications quality, and further can help establish the quality standards to enhance service level.