A user study on the adoption of location based services

Abstract

Based on the end user's exact location, providing useful information and location based services (LBS) through wireless pervasive devices at right place and right time could be beneficial to both businesses and their customers. However, the adoption rates of these location-aware pervasive services from the consumption side are still low, implying that there might be some reasons keeping the potential users away from using LBS. This research attempted to find out such reasons by investigating what factors would negatively influence users' adoption of LBS. A hybrid approach, integrating a qualitative method, ZMET, with the quantitative data analysis of the samples collected from a subsequent questionnaire survey, was designed and implemented in this study to elicit and validate potential LBS users' in-depth feelings. Our study results show that cost, worry of security & privacy Issues, worry of quality of LBS information, and lack of cognition of LBS are the barriers impeding mobile service users' adoption of LBS applications. Our findings can be referenced by service providers for the purpose of the design and development of successful business applications to catch the revolutionary opportunity and benefit of LBS. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.