Always On: A Framework for Understanding Personal Mobile Web Motivations, Behaviors, and Contexts of Use

Mobile data services offer a growing alternative means of accessing the Web and have drawn significant attention from the mobile industry. However, design efforts are hampered people’s motivations, behaviors, and contexts of use when they access the Web on their phones. To help address this need, we conducted a study to explore the following questions for U.S. mobile phone users: 1) What motivations lead people to access the Web on their mobile phones?; 2) What do they do?; and 3) Where do they do it? Based on the findings from Part One of the study, we constructed a taxonomy of behaviors, motivations, and contexts associated with mobile Web usage. In Parts Two and Three, we validated the taxonomy as well as compared iPhone versus non-iPhone user behaviors. We conclude this report by considering the design implications of our findings and future research directions.

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