Experimental comparison of existing application sharing with a revised version with respect to criteria of usability

Obviously, usability is an important criterion for the acceptance and use of applications in the field of information and communication technology. Usability is particularly important for general-purpose software products such as Microsoft's NetMeeting. This paper presents a critical review of the application sharing functionality of NetMeeting. Application sharing allows two or more persons to use identical electronic Word, Excel or Photoshop documents and to cooperate on that basis. In an expert evaluation and first preliminary user test various usability deficits of the program were found. Subsequently the established version of application sharing was modified to eliminate usability deficits observed. On that basis an experimental user test was started to find out whether the modified version proves to be superior to the established one with regard to the effectiveness, the efficiency, and the satisfaction of use. Interim results obtained by now suggest at least partial advantages of the new version. Final results will be available at the HFT conference in December 2003.