92 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 56, NO. 2, JUNE 2013 Introduction to the Special Section: Designing a Better User Experience for Self-Service Systems —THEA VAN DER GEEST,JUDITH RAMEY,STEPHANIE ROSENBAUM, SENIOR MEMBER, IEEE, AND LEX VAN VELSEN Index Terms—Best practices, communication effectiveness, consumer behavior, design for quality, human-computer interaction, online services, self-service systems, sociotechnical systems, usability, user-centered design, user experience, user experience design, user interfaces, user research. In one of our first meetings as editors of this special section on “Designing a Better User Experience for Self-Service Systems,” we started listing some of the self-service systems that we had used that very day. Our list included an automatic teller machine (ATM), an online banking site, a driving license renewal application, a ticketing machine, a check-in terminal for the train, a vending machine, a site where you could sign up for government health insurance, parking meters, and different web stores. We had used those self-service systems through websites on our desk computers and through applications on our mobile phones, but also through terminals and kiosks that we had encountered in public places. The systems were designed with many intended functions in mind: presenting information, enabling transactions, and selling various products and services. However, the essential and critical function we address in this special section is that self-service systems must help us to help ourselves. LIVING IN A SELF-SERVICE SOCIETY We are increasingly living in a self-service society. Many organizations are making the shift to self-service systems as an alternative to their “traditional” service provided in face-to-face contact with an employee or telephone contact with a call center agent. The benefits of self-service to the organization are often clear; self-service is more efficient for them and, hence, cheaper. Also, with Manuscript received March 04, 2013; accepted April 03, 2013. Date of current version May 20, 2013. T. van der Geest is with the University of Twente, Cubicus, Enschede 7500 AE, the Netherlands (email: T.M.vanderGeest@utwente.nl). J. Ramey is with the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 USA (email: jramey@uw.edu). S. Rosenbaum is with TecEd, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA (email: stephanie@teced.com). L. van Velsen is with Roessingh Research and Development, Telemedicine Group, Enschede 7500 AH, the Netherlands (email: l.vanvelsen@rrd.nl). IEEE 10.1109/TPC.2013.2258731 self-service, they can expand their business hours and target a much larger customer audience. The business advantage of the self-service alternative can be considerable. A Dutch bank calculated that a complete redesign of their website, with the aim of making it completely accessible and entirely self-service, reduced the number of contacts with their telephone call center by 15%–30%. With about 20,000 calls per week, and organizational costs of 7.50–12.50 per call, the focus on web-based self-service brought the bank a cost reduction of more than 1.7 million Euro per year [1]. But what about the benefits for users and customers, who often have no choice but to use the self-service system? Both public and private organizations seem to assume that we—the average citizen, client, or customer—can cope with ever-changing self-service systems, and are willing to do so. Self-service systems offer us the benefit of 24/7 access to an ever-growing range of services and perhaps also a strong sense of autonomy and fulfillment. In exchange, we—rather than the service providers—have to put in extra effort, as well as losing “the human touch” in the service encounter. We can no longer call on a “real” human but find ourselves face-to-face with a system, and we are on our own to make the darned thing work for us! What does that scenario mean for experiences designed and created for the users of these systems, and how do self-service system developers take the premise of self-service into account in the design of such systems? That is the question that led to the work for this special section. PLACING SELF-SERVICE COMMUNICATION IN THE FIELD OF PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION The field of professional communication rests on decades of research and practice in the design of information products—print and online documentation, training, software user 0361-1434/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE