Background Software industry employees are subject to the harmful effects of technostress, which is caused by information technology use. Aim The aim of the current study is to understand how software industry employees cope with technostress and how their employers can best support these coping efforts. Method We employed the critical incident technique using a qualitative approach and collected our data through a questionnaire. In total, we collected and analyzed 715 real-life accounts of coping with critical technostress incidents from employees working in the industry. Results We identified 27 strategies for coping with technostress and provided a comprehensive categorization of them. Additionally, we uncovered novel coping strategies and highlighted the contextual (organizational and personal) factors that influence the selection of coping strategies. Conclusions Our findings help in explaining the reasons and motives for up-taking specific coping strategies in the software industry. Based on our findings, employees invest considerable effort into coping with technostress, but do not receive enough support for their coping efforts. We offer insightful suggestions for support mechanisms that could be used by software organizations to enhance employees’ coping efforts and well-being.

Software engineering (SE) requires high analytical skills and creativity, which makes it an excellent context for experiencing flow. Although previous work in the SE context has identified how positive affect and development tools can support the flow experience, there is still much to uncover about the characteristics of software developers’ flow experiences. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a qualitative critical incident technique (CIT) questionnaire (n = 401) on the flow-facilitating factors and characteristics of flow in the SE context. The most important flow-facilitating factors in developers’ work included optimal challenge, high motivation, positive developer experience (DX), and no distractions or interruptions. The flow experiences were characterized by absorption, effortless control, intrinsic reward, and high performance. Our study identifies the features of flow commonly addressed in flow research; however, it also highlights how IT use, especially development tools that provide positive DX, as well as being able to work without excessive distractions and interruptions are important facilitators of developers’ flow.

Early adolescents are accustomed to using information technology (IT) for different purposes as a part of their everyday life. While IT use can provide many benefits, it can also include negative experiences, such as feelings of stress (i.e. technostress). Considering that young IT users’ technostress perspectives have remained limited in the literature, this paper attempts to contrast their experiences with aspects from earlier research. A qualitative content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 31 primary and secondary school students reveals that early adolescents have encountered stressful IT use experiences that vary based on the degree of stress. The experiences relate to different dimensions of IT use, namely 1) online social (media) behaviour, 2) notification-driven behaviour, 3) social distancing and online education behaviour, and 4) gameplay and other aspects of IT use behaviour. Common denominators for these experiences include the attention or time required by IT use and coming across unwanted content or communications. In addition to reporting negative feelings and emotions, the participants mentioned physical strains, including headache and exhaustion. Although early adolescents can face experiences that can be contrasted with similar stressors and strains as adults, the distinct characteristics of their IT use should be considered in future research.

Digital games are one of the most popular entertainment media in the world. Their allure and widespread popularity makes them an interesting and highly potential platform for behavior change attempts. In this paper, we investigate what types of behavior changes Pokémon GO has promoted or induced among its players. The study is based on an online survey sample of 262 Pokémon GO players, collected using the critical incident technique and analyzed using qualitative methods. The analysis shows that the behavior changes induced by Pokémon GO are not just restricted to increased physical activity or social behavior but are actually much more multifaceted: players were more social, found their routines more meaningful, expressed more positive emotions, and were more motivated to explore their surroundings.

Extreme service or product experiences have a major influence on perceptions and behavior. Therefore, numerous studies have collected such single positive and negative experiences to understand which factors affect (dis)satisfaction, value, and quality. However, most of these studies lack the process approach needed for understanding why and how these experiences take place and proceed, whereas the context of mobile applications has also remained highly unexplored. This study aims to fill the gap by presenting the mobile experience process model with empirical evidence of extreme experiences from 606 actual mobile application users. With the help of the model and the detailed descriptions of its elements, researchers and practitioners will be able to understand triggers, interactions, and perceptions that build up to single experiences and identify differences between positive and negative extreme experiences as well as different application types.

Over the last few years, mobile applications demonstrating Augmented Reality (AR) - such as Layar, Junaio and Google Goggles - have been introduced to consumers. We conducted an online survey to explore the user experience (UX) of early stage mobile AR applications available in the market in spring 2011, covering both location-based AR browsers and image recognition AR applications for object-based interaction. We identify various types of experiences such applications have evoked by qualitatively analyzing 84 users' narratives of their most satisfying and unsatisfying experiences. The results highlight, for example, experiences of awareness of surroundings, empowerment, positive surprise, amazement and fascination from the novelty value, as well as some examples of immersion and social connectivity. The analysis indicates that the applications have not yet reached their potential in evoking a multifaceted user experience that is characteristic especially to AR. This work helps in understanding the experiential design potential in mobile AR and points out UX issues to further focus on in design.

Augmented reality (AR) as an emerging technology in the mobile computing domain is becoming mature enough to engender publicly available applications for end users. Various commercial applications have recently been emerging in the mobile consumer domain at an increasing pace — Layar, Junaio, Google Goggles, and Wikitude are perhaps the most prominent ones. However, the research community lacks an understanding of how well such timely applications have been accepted, what kind of user experiences they have evoked, and what the users perceive as the weaknesses of the various applications overall. During the spring of 2011 we conducted an online survey to study the overall acceptance and user experience of the mobile AR-like consumer applications currently existing on the market. This paper reports the first analyses of the qualitative and quantitative survey data of 90 respondents. We highlight an extensive set of user-oriented issues to be considered in developing the applications further, as well as in directing future user research in AR. The results indicate that the experiences have been inconsistent: generally positive evaluations are overshadowed by mentions of applications' pragmatic uselessness in everyday life and technical unreliability, as well as excessive or limited and irrelevant content.