HP Labs Technical Reports
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Quality is in the Eye of the Beholder: Meeting Users'
Requirements for Internet Quality of Service
Bouch, Anna; Kuchinsky, Allan; Bhatti, Nina
HPL-2000-4
Keyword(s):Internet; Quality of Service; user perception
Abstract:Growing usage and diversity of applications on the
Internet makes Quality of Service (QoS) increasingly
critical [15]. To date, the majority of research on
QoS is systems oriented, focusing on traffic
analysis,
scheduling, and routing. Relatively minor attention
has been paid to user-level QoS issues. It is not yet
known how objective system quality relates to users'
subjective perceptions of quality. This paper
presents
the results of quantitative experiments that
establish
a mapping between objective and perceived QoS in the
context of Internet commerce. We also conducted focus
groups to determine how contextual factors influence
users' perceptions of QoS. We show that, while users'
perceptions of World Wide Web QoS are influenced by a
number of contextual factors, it is possible to
correlate objective measures of QoS with subjective
judgements made by users, and therefore influence
system design. We argue that only by integrating
users' requirements for QoS into system design can
the
utility of the future Internet be maximized.
8 Pages
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