Factors Affecting User Reassurance When Handling Information in a Public Work Environment

Abstract

This article describes a basic study on design guidelines for a public work environment where personal information might be handled. In this study, we conducted a user survey to extract factors that affect reassurance and performed an experiment to evaluate the effect of partition size on reassurance. First, from the user survey, we extracted personal-information and work-environment factors that affect reassurance in a public work environment. Next, we examined the effect of partition size (height and depth) on reassurance and found that “the ability of someone viewing my monitor from a neighboring seat” is a factor affecting reassurance and that “the ability of seeing the figure (feel the presence) of a neighbor” does not affect reassurance. In short, partition height has the role of blocking information (on the monitor) from a neighbor, and provided that partition height satisfies a certain value (keeping the monitor out of a neighbor's view), partition depth will also make a significant difference in reassurance. The role of partition depth, moreover, is not so much to block information but rather to block off the user's space.