By Iris A. Junglas and Richard T.

Watson

LOCATION-BASED SERVICES
Evaluating user perceptions of location-tracking and
location-awareness services.

“Federal law enforcement attempts to use

cell phones as tracking devices were rebuked twice this month
by lower court judges, who say that government cannot get
real-time tracking information on citizens without showing
probable cause” [12]. As this news report illustrates, a new data
type—location data provided by mobile devices—has cap-
tured the interest of U.S. law enforcement agencies. However,
viewing location data solely from a surveillance perspective
misses the point. Such data has the potential to expand many
existing information services by adding a location dimension.

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 Even though location-based services (LBS) were Mobile Communication—E112—which represents
predicted to become the “killer application” of mobile the European equivalent of the U.S. E911. Even
commerce, their dominance has not yet material- though legally binding, the European Commission
ized—but is predicted to do so soon. The LBS mar- has not stated any accuracy requirements or any pol-
ket size has been predicted to grow exponentially icy regarding the localization technique to be used. In
from 2006 to 2010. Within this four-year time span, 2006, seven (out of 25) European countries were
for example, Asia’s LBS market is expected to increase E112-operational, three had limited scope, and nine
from $291.7 million to $447 million [8], Europe’s had initiated implementation and were upgrading
market from $191 million [9] to $622 million [3], their existing infrastructure [4].
and the U.S. market from $150 million to $3.1 bil- Generally, the slow adoption of LBS has been
lion [10]. LBS have been available for several years. explained primarily by three causes. First, the imple-
Initially, location determination for mobile phones mentation of more accurate localization techniques
(such as E-OTD, U-TDOA, or A-
GPS) through providers has taken
longer and has been more costly
than expected. Second, the few
available LBS applications display
IN THE U.S., THE LBS MARKET long response times, often too long
SEEMS TO BE LESS DRIVEN BY for users to handle. And third, users
USER DEMAND OR TECHNOLOGY are concerned about privacy issues
that are an inevitable side effect of
INNOVATIONS THAN BY LBS. Whereas other studies have
REGULATORY AGENCIES. demonstrated the impact of privacy
concerns on LBS, for our study we
chose to examine LBS in an envi-
ronment that was not affected by
slow response times or imprecise
localization information. We analyzed LBS in an
was solely cell-based, and location accuracy was deter- experimental laboratory setting that provided faster
mined by the cell size. Whereas cell-based approaches transmission rates than any currently available cellular
do not require modifications to the handset or net- phone infrastructure and higher localization accuracy
work, other localization techniques, such as network- than mandated by the FCC in its E911 mandate.
based (TOA, E-OTD), handset-based (GPS), or
hybrid approaches (A-GPS), require modification to LOCATION-BASED SERVICES
give increased location accuracy. Location-based services are any service that takes
In the U.S., the LBS market seems to be less driven into account the geographic location of an entity.
by user demand or technology innovations than by First, the term “entity” means the object triggering
regulatory agencies. In 1996, the Federal Communi- location information can be human or non-human.
cations Commission (FCC) issued the E911 mandate A pallet of groceries is, for instance, a non-human
intending to improve emergency responses to wireless object that often needs to be tracked for logistical
911 calls by determining a caller’s longitude and lati- purposes. The Germany-based METRO Group,
tude, with final implementation targeted for the end after a comprehensive pilot project with suppliers,
of 2005. The stated goal is providing the coordinates warehouses, and retail stores using various genera-
of an E911 caller: the location accuracy must be tions of RFID to track pallets along the entire
within 50 to 100 meters for 67% of all calls and process chain, recently completed its rollout to 180
within 150 to 300 meters for 95% of all calls [2]. At locations [5].
present, this level of accuracy can be provided only to Second, there are always at least two entities
a limited number of public safety answering points involved in a location-based service request—just
(PSAPs). As a result, U.S. cellular providers were fined like there are at least two people in a phone conver-
for not meeting the long-past deadline [6]. However, sation. In a generic geographic grid (such as longi-
once implemented, the E911 mandate will provide tude and latitude), entity A is always in relative
the technical foundation for LBS in the U.S. position to entity B. Moreover, each of the entities
In Europe, the European Commission initiated a can be either static or moving. Static can imply two
similar pursuit in 2002 by issuing the Directive for things: either they are truly static (such as retailers) or

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they are only temporarily static (such as a parked car). of use. In addition, we also examined “traditional”
Third, one of the entities, whether human or non- (non-location) services, such as browsing the Web for
human, is always the object of LBS, that is, itFigure is the 1. information
Usefulness and and easewriting/sending
of use perceptions email, to provide a
entity about which location information is recorded. foundation for comparison.
toward differing tasks. For meticulously singling
And fourth, one of the entities is always a recipient of out effects between location-tracking and location-
the location information. LBS researchers distinguish aware services, a laboratory experiment has the advan-
between location-tracking services
and position-aware services [1].
Strongly Strongly
Location-tracking services provide agree Neither disagree
information about a user’s where- (+3) (0) (-3)
Perceptions of Usefulness
abouts to entities other than the
2.49 Task: Location-tracking task, such as “Find
user, while location-aware services 1.46 person X”
supply the user (the information 2.41 Task: Location-aware task, such as “Find the
requester) with personal location 1.71 closest X currently open”
data. In the case of location-aware 2.07 Task: Simple task with no location component,
2.36
services, the location-information- such as “Search for information X”

causing entity is the recipient, Perceptions of Ease of Use

whereas for location-tracking ser- 2.53
2.01
Task: Location-tracking task, such as “Find
person X”
vices, an external third party
2.45 Task: Location-aware task, such as “Find the
requests and receives location 2.15 closest X currently open”
information about another entity. 2.05 Task: Simple task with no location component,
A car navigation system is a loca- 2.38 such as “Search for information X”
tion-aware service. Here, location
Legend:
information is provided to the Equipped with wireless capability and LBS
requester (the driver) who, in Equipped with wireless capability but not with LBS
return, receives real-time naviga- Statistically different at 0.05

tional services. Other examples of

location-aware services include
location-sensitive billing (paying Figure 1. Usefulness tage of achieving control over disturbing (or external)
and ease of use
while passing toll stations), and perceptions toward
effects that allows for examining efficiency and effec-
location-specific store advertise- differing tasks. tiveness Junglas gainsfigof1LBS (3/08) in the most accurate way.
ments sent to a consumer’s mobile
phone when the person is in proximity. An example of AN EMPIRICAL STUDY
location-tracking services is UPS’s truck-tracking sys- The experiment involved 58 subjects, of whom
tem, where location information for each truck is used 36.2% were female and 63.8% male. The majority
to increase fleet management efficiency. of subjects was between 19 and 23 years old (93.2%)
and had either moderate or intensive experience
The distinction between location- (> 93.1%) with at least one of three technologies:
tracking and location-aware is important—not only Internet, computers, and cellular phones. Every sub-
from a technological viewpoint but also for other rea- ject was equipped with a wireless PDA and ran-
sons. Whereas location-tracking services focus on par- domly assigned to one of two experimental groups:
ticular coordinates, location-aware services go a step one had location-tracking and location-aware func-
beyond: they also include the coordinates of the sur- tionalities, while the other did not and was provided
rounding context and are expected to provide a better only with wireless connectivity.
socio-technical fit. Thus, consumers may have different The “wireless” experimental zone spanned two
perceptions associated with each service and may find buildings and a courtyard in between, totaling 80,525
one form of service more attractive than the other or square feet (7,481m2). Within this zone, wireless
may simply detect that one form of service contributes Internet accessibility at a transmission rate of 11Mbps
more to their individual efficiency and effectiveness was supported (using WiFi 802.11a). The level of
than the other. To examine these questions, we con- localization accuracy at any point throughout the net-
ducted an empirical study of the potential differences work averaged between 10 and 20 meters using cell-
between location-tracking and location-aware applica- based localization techniques.
tions. We were particularly interested in differences in Every subject was given the same set of three tasks:
performance and in perceptions of usefulness and ease location-tracking (find a moving person); location-

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sensitive (find the closest office that is currently was significantly different (p < 0.05) from their con-
open); and those that did not have a location compo- trol counterparts equipped only with wireless capabil-
nent inherent to them (such as checking for weather ity. We observed that subjects were surprised by the
information, writing an email message)—all embed- possibility of supporting a traditional “seek” task with
ded in an encompassing scenario. the help of information technology. Having a person’s
We measured performance, usefulness, and ease- location information available with the press of a but-
of-use perceptions associated with the tasks. For ton was an overwhelming experience—as confirmed
example, we expected that individuals would perceive by some informal interviews conducted after the
a technology with wireless and localization capability study. It typically took subjects one “round” of loca-
as more useful for finding a moving person than a tion tasks to understand the depth of the application
technology with wireless capability only. In the same and that the wireless system was tracking their geo-
vein, we anticipated some tasks, Figure such 2. Task performance
as checking graphic of differing
whereabouts tasks.throughout the experimental
weather information, were independent of the avail- zone. Subjects expressed both enthusiasm and con-
ability of LBS. Every sub- cern. They were fascinated
ject underwent a by the technical possibili-
30-minute training ses- Velocity (in feet per second) ties and alarmed by the
sion prior to usage. All 1 0.5 0 prospect of someone track-
received their first task ing their movements.
(out of three different 0.62 Task: Location- Second, with regard to
tracking task, such as
types of tasks) via email 0.55 “Find person X” location-aware services,
after some randomized Task: Location-aware subjects also said they were
0.54 task, such as “Find the
amount of time. In order closest X currently
convinced of their useful-
0.48
to avoid grouping and open” ness—more so than the cor-
learning effects, task order responding control group
and the time between issu- Time (in seconds) (see Figure 1). Though the
ing tasks were random- 200 100 0 interfaces for both location-
ized. After every task Task: Simple task
tracking and location-aware
fulfillment, subjects were 113 with no location functionalities were very
component, such as
asked to rate their percep- 126 “Search for
similar, subjects equipped
tions of usefulness and information X” with location-aware capa-
ease of use. Overall, each bilities did not report a sig-
Legend:
subject spent approxi- Equipped with wireless capability and LBS
nificant higher level of ease
mately three hours partici- Equipped with wireless capability but not with LBS of use (see Figure 1). Inter-
pating in the study. Statistically different at 0.05 estingly, subjects equipped
Task performance—the with location-aware ser-
time it took for the subjects Figure 2. Task performance vices did not perform significantly better than those
of differing tasks.
to complete a task—was without (see Figure 2). A possible explanation for this
measured automatically by finding may lie in the experimental setup, more
the system. Because location-tracking and location-
Junglas fig 2specifically(3/08) in the geographical arrangements of the
aware tasks stipulate that at least one of the participat- offices. Because of the size of the experimental cell,
ing entities is moving, the system also recorded offices were not far apart from each other. Thus, the
geographic information. For example, a task that likelihood of subjects finding an open office (the task
required a subject to find a moving person recorded not at hand) was not sufficiently different between LBS-
only location measures of the subjects at event time but assisted and unassisted searching.
also location measures of the (moving) person to be Third, for simple tasks (those that did not contain
found. This was necessary in order to adjust time mea- a location component), perceptions of usefulness and
sures based on a subject’s distance in relation to another ease of use did not expose any statistical difference
person or place when executing the task. Adjustments (see Figure 1). The same was true for performance
were operationalized by calculating the velocity (the dis- measures (see Figure 2, bottom). Here, subjects per-
tance-time ratio) of the solution. formed the same, irrespective of whether or not LBS
Four interesting outcomes were observed (see Fig- were available. These outcomes were to be expected,
ures 1 and 2). First, location-tracking capabilities dis- as the sole reason for including simple tasks into our
played a high level of perceived usefulness and ease of study was to provide a cross-check instrument for
use, along with an increased level of performance that comparison purposes.

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 Overall, and as a final finding, subjects (with or would expect that people are willing to provide their
without LBS) were highly motivated to partake in the location information to providers, but are hesitant to
experiment (even though it took more than three provide the same information to another entity. As this
hours to complete). Throughout the study, the level of was not the focus of our study, we refer to preliminary
enjoyment among participants remained high to findings of another of our studies, which shows con-
extremely high (88%), which indicates people were sumers are inclined to forgo privacy if they consider the
very interested in using a technology innovation pro- resulting services received sufficiently useful. The E911
viding LBS. emergency service is an instance of where the value of
the service should override privacy concerns. For many
CONCLUSION services, however, where the individual benefit is not as
The localization factor has always been mentioned as apparent (for example, promotional offers from stores
one of the fundamental factors that differentiates m- in the vicinity), consumers have a strong tendency to
commerce from e-commerce. However, until now, reject location-aware services. As a consequence, pri-
this prophecy has materialized only in Asia, in mar- vacy considerations, besides efficiency gains and attitu-
kets such as Japan and South Korea. In Europe, cell- dinal perceptions, are likely to be a major determinant
based LBS have been around for some time, however, in the success of LBS. c
even for those services consumers are reluctant to pay
more than for a text message [11]. More accurate REFERENCES
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gating between location-tracking and location-aware
services demonstrated that differences do indeed exist
between them. Location-tracking capabilities make an Iris A. Junglas ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of
decision and information sciences at the C.T. Bauer College of
individual’s life easier by being more useful, easier to Business, University of Houston, TX.
use, and generating higher efficiency. Location-aware Richard T. Watson ([email protected]) is the J. Rex Fuqua
capabilities, on the other hand, seem not as valuable. Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy in the MIS Department,
Even though efficiency effects were observable, they Terry College of Business, the University of Georgia, Athens.
turned out to be not significant. Nevertheless, subjects
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or class-
were highly intrigued by LBS capabilities, and the room use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for
experiment left them with a formative impression. profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on
the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to
Along with enthusiasm, however, privacy concerns lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
immediately followed, and individuals realized services © 2008 ACM 0001-0782/08/0300 $5.00
that support navigational help can also be used to gain
information about the navigator’s whereabouts. More
specifically, and from observation during the study, one DOI: 10.1145/1325555.1325568

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM March 2008/Vol. 51, No. 3 69