Client-server architectures have been used for years, and many modern applications rely on this approach to be able to present rich and complex information to users without needlessly encumbering their local device with computation, and also to be able to keep all data in a (more-or-less) centrally available location, as well as allowing for multiple applications to share data. When an application has many users, the application backend must have systems in place for dealing with variations in traffic. Modern systems have been designed from the perspective of trying to maintain an appropriate amount of capacity at the backend (including “spare” capacity to handle spikes of traffic). Put plainly—these systems are designed to be able to respond to incoming requests with an acceptable latency given an unknown workload. Moreover, in systems such as these it is assumed that latency at the end-user must be minimized as far as possible, and that any increase will negatively impact user satisfaction, and thus also impact the bottom line of the application provider. In this dissertation, I explore the relationship between increased latency in cloud-backed mobile applications and user satisfaction. Furthermore, I explore the effects of environmental contextualization, that is, leveraging the emerging cultural trend of being environmentally friendly as a moral good, in shaping the perception of satisfaction with performance. I have designed and conducted several user studies designed to test all of these relationships, and found surprising and novel results through each of them. Through these studies I show that users’ tolerance for delay (which I term the delay tolerance envelope is much higher on mobile platforms than generally believed. Additionally, users are not willing to change their behavior based on the belief that changes would result in more environmentally sustainable outcomes at datacenter backends, but that even simple group pressuring methods, which allow a user to compare their environmental friendliness to others, can increase their willingness to change.

Last modified

• 02/21/2018

Creator

• Maciej Swiech

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N23Q2F

Subject

• Computer Science

Keyword

• User Satisfaction
• Mobile Applications
• Sustainability
• Datacenter Energy

Date created

• 2016-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright