∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002).

Do not cite ∗∗

A Human Factors Extension

to the
Seven-Layer OSI Reference Model

Ben Bauer
Nortel Networks

Andrew Patrick
Institute for Information Technology
National Research Council of Canada

Abstract– An extension to the seven-layer OSI Reference Model is proposed as a way

to facilitate discussions between HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) practitioners
on one hand, and application and network developers on the other. A new common
conceptual ground can be used to understand how to link applications to human needs
as a function of network capabilities. The framework also permits an understanding
of how to determine whose purview an issue is. Finally, the new OSI+HCI reference
model provides a strategy for designing networks with the human requirements in
mind.

1. Introduction
We propose a human factors extension to the seven-layer OSI Reference Model [25][9]. This
extension is consistent with the design principles of the OSI model and offers a common
conceptual language to facilitate meaningful discussions between the HCI (Human-Computer
Interaction) disciplines and those responsible for network and application design. In Section 2,
relevant properties of the OSI Reference Model are briefly summarized and the human factors
motivation for its extension is given. A thorough treatment of the subtleties of the OSI model
is beyond the scope of the present paper, and the reader is encouraged to see [25], if required.
Section 3 presents the three HCI layers and discusses their scope and nature. In Section 4 we
point out additional inter-relations, features and justifications for the 3 HCI layers plus their
value as a framework for linking OSI issues with HCI issues. Finally, in Section 5, we provide
a few concluding thoughts.

2. The OSI model

The quarter-century-old OSI model describes a layered network architecture that spans from
the Physical Layer (1) of networking (connectors, wires. voltages, etc.) up to the Application
Layer (7) that delivers reconstituted data to the applications (see Figure 1). There are several
important qualities of the model. First, the duty of each layer is well defined and documented.
Each layer’s job is to facilitate the transfer information between adjacent layers. It is possible
to implement something new at any layer (or even create sublayers) provided interlayer se-
mantics are respected. A useful feature of this schema is a clear statement of whose concern
something is. A trivial example might be packet collision on Ethernet. Though it may affect
higher layers, it is not within the scope, for example, of a Layer 7 protocol to deal with this.

1
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

7. APPLICATION HTTP,FTP,NFS,POP...

6. PRESENTATION PS,LZ,ISO-PP...

5. SESSION DNS,RPC,PAP...

OSI 4. TRANSPORT TCP,UDP,RTP...

3. NETWORK IP,DHCP,ICMP,AEP...

2. DATA LINK ARP,PPP...

1. PHYSICAL 10BT,xDSL,V.42...

Fig. 1 The 7-layer OSI Reference model [25].

Two additional principles in the specification of the model are that separate layers perform
functions that differ in their technology, and, that similar functions be placed in a single layer
[25]. This model has proven to be quite successful as a design and teaching tool, as evidenced
by its standardization and its longevity.

From the point of view of human factors, the 7-layer OSI model is incomplete because a user
does not directly interact with, nor perceive, any of these layers in getting some task done.
Thus, the OSI layers are invisible to users and the terminology and types of data present in
these layers are meaningless to them; users do not know or care about the protocols, packets,
or stacks. This is not a disparagement of the OSI model. It handles concerns in its own
domain very well. But, there is another domain that we claim sits on top of the OSI layers.
This domain is concerned with the reasons and ways in which people interact with data that
has been so capably forwarded by the OSI layers. These are the HCI (Human-Computer
Interaction) layers and are shown in Figure 2.
3. The HCI Layers

HUMAN NEEDS communication, education,

10. acquisition, security, entertainment...

HCI HUMAN PERFORMANCE social,

9. perceptual, cognitive, motor, memorial...

DISPLAY keyboard, vocal, GUI/CLI, bpp, dpi,

8. ppm...

Fig. 2 The 3-layer HCI Reference model extension to the

OSI 7-layer model.

The proposal of these three layers is based in part on the requirement that they be psy-
chologically relevant and accessible (i.e., part of direct human experience, observable, and
quantifiable), and that they conform to the 13 principles followed in specification of the OSI
layers [25]. These HCI layers (Display, Human Performance, and Human Needs) represent the

2
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

experience that people have with the devices and services that technology offers. Each layer
is examined and justified below.

3.1 HCI Layer 10: Human Needs

Layer 10 captures the essence of why a user would interact with technology; to get something
done to satisfy a need. That need should be defined in a technology-independent way. Layer 10
needs (communication, acquisition of goods and knowledge, entertainment. . .) drive the entire
value chain. Note the generic language about the needs. We did not say “Layer 10 needs
(e-mail, e-commerce, webinars, MP3)”. Those technologies and concepts are just current and
rapidly changing methods to address the more fundamental Layer 10 needs, needs that have
existed for a very long time in the human condition. Thus, Layer 10 is one of the slowest
changing layers.

“You have to find a part of the technology that speaks to unchanging, ancient quests of the
human” Michael Dertouzos, MIT 1936-2001

This is the key to designing compelling and useful applications and services. The question to
ask is; “What human need am I trying to address?” (see, [5][15][11][20]). If the Layer 10 need
is, for example, human-human interactive communication, then to the extent that Layers 8
and below get in the way of this, the need is not satisfied. There are many possible modes
of human-human interaction and one must delve more deeply into the need. Is the need to
hear the other person’s voice, is immediate interaction expected, is acknowledgment of receipt
needed? After all, human-human communication can be accomplished by technologies that
range from postal mail, e-mail, text-chat, phone calls, video conferencing and perhaps one
day, 3D holographic/force-feedback virtual reality. The critical determination is whether the
technology at hand addresses the need. If there is a gap between what the technology can do
and what the need requires, is there a fallback, lower-tech mode that can suffice?

It seems trite to say it, but people don’t usually interact with technology for its own sake
(see [11]), nor do they usually know or care what goes on below Layer 8. Surely there are
exceptions for highly technical users or when a technology is brand new, but if that is the
only attraction of the technology, then such novelty (and perhaps the technology) will rapidly
fade. Note that when technology is novel, a desire to experience the technology rather than
what it can do is common (recall your first e-mail?).

There are also several less obvious, but arguably more important, Layer 10 needs that impact
the user experience such as security, reliability, and value (“do I feel at risk ... can I count
on this next time ... is the cost justified by what I gain?”). These are likely experienced over
timescales of minutes, hours or longer. This brings up another aspect of the 10-layer model –
timescale. It is true that in both the OSI layers and the HCI layers, events and patterns exist
at multiple timescales. At the HCI layers, an application or service that satisfies Layer 10
(gets a job done in a pleasing way) on one occasion, but fails on another occasion, will have a
lower overall satisfaction at Layer 10 in the long run. A very useful term for this satisfaction

3
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

is Quality of Experience (QoE) which can be located on a scale from poor or unusable to
excellent. Thus QoE (an HCI layer concept) exists on multiple time scales and is determined
by the extent to which the application satisfies the need.

3.2 HCI Layer 9: Human Performance

This layer reflects the information processing features and limitations of users. Over 100
years of research in psychophysics, cognitive psychology, learning and memory have produced
quantification of human performance capacities and limits. Basic findings include the bandpass
nature of human auditory and visual processing, fundamental capacity limits on memory
and motor performance, thresholds for perception of various types of energy, constraints on
attention, temporal perception, and so forth. Many of these are direct results of the properties
of the sensory organs and are thus not likely to change in the near term. Some are changing,
but on fairly long timescales (e.g., there is some suggestion that acceptable delays for web-page
download are decreasing as users’ typical network access progresses from dialup to broadband
to 10 Mb/s office LAN [26]).

Impressive design optimizations have occurred in places where knowledge of human per-
formance characteristics have been taken into consideration. For example, vertical refresh
rates and colour gamuts for computer monitors are based on knowledge of human temporal
and chromatic vision limits (in fact, the reason raster displays produce acceptable images is
that under normal conditions we cannot resolve the individual triads of pixels nor the rapid
temporal attack and decay of the phosphors thus producing the illusion of an image that is
continuous in time and space). Audio and video codecs take advantage of the spatial and
acoustic bandpass nature of human perception. There are similar optimization opportunities
for interface and network designers who understand the nature of human attention, memory,
and time comprehension (see for example Akscyn’s law [1] which claims, among other things,
that interface response can sometimes be too fast and detrimental to performance). Un-
derstanding these issues determines the match between application performance and human
requirements, and hence the final success of the application. Thus, Layer 10 needs are satisfied
by matching the human input/output capabilities at Layer 9 with devices and interfaces at
Layer 8 (see [3] for a good starting point for Layer 9 capabilities, and, [2] for another Layer 9
perspective).
3.3 HCI Layer 8: Display
Layer 8 represents that aspect of the hardware, software, and interfaces that a user experi-
ences. It is the ’C’ in HCI. Here at the lowest HCI layer a representation of the data is created
out of signals that the human cannot understand directly (packets, bits, etc.) and that repre-
sentation is displayed on a terminal of some sort (CRT, printer, force-feedback pointer, etc.) as
input to Layer 9. Layer 8 also works in the opposite direction to translate user output (mostly
motor behaviour such as keystrokes, gestures, and voice) into a form that the OSI layers can
understand. A sequence from Layer 10 downward might be: Layer 10 says “I need to say ’yes’
to that” which is translated in Layer 9 as “I must move a pointer and click”, which is then
translated by Layer 8 into electrical signals to be fed to the OSI layers as packets. These input
and output devices have been engineered with the human senses and physical limitations in

4
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

mind. These devices are optimized to feed into the human information processing systems
(reading, memory, cognition, etc.) – that is, the 2nd HCI layer (Human Performance).

It may seem odd that physical devices such as keyboards and screens, rather than just the
software interfaces, are included at Layer 8. There are two reasons why this is the case. First,
OSI Layer 1 (Physical) is also concerned with hardware which is highly substitutable; the
higher OSI layers don’t care whether packets came across a serial line, coax, or through the
air, just as the higher HCI layers (at least in the informational sense) don’t care whether the
data comes from a CRT, a flat panel, or a projector provided it does so without significant
loss. Second, users may not differentiate between the hardware aspects and the interface,
which may in fact be the same thing in a kiosk for example.

4. Technical Issues and The Value of the 7+3 Layer Concept

4.1: Technical Issues:
The apposition of some form of human-centric layers on top of the OSI layers is not new.
In [4] a model of the hierarchical relationship between the user, applications, and networks is
given. They also use the term “subjective QoS” to reflect HCI layer satisfaction and investigate
several Layer 10 needs such as perception of value, security, and confidence. [21] also proposes
a schema with user cost and satisfaction on the topmost layer, applications in the middle,
and network/hardware on the lowest level. Hints of the layered framework are also present in,
for example, [18] and [7] who differentiate between ’perceptual QoS’ (QoE), application QoS
(Layer 7 and 8 concerns) and Network QoS (Layer 5 and lower) which is a clear step towards
the present thinking (see also, [6][13][14][24]). HCI evaluation methods such as task analysis
and GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules) [12] also have a similar flavour,
although they are often focused on Layer 8 issues and fail to capture the high-level user needs
we describe in Layer 10. Also, the term QoE is not new, but is found more frequently in white
papers provided by companies who provide web page and server tuning products than it is in
research literature.

The advantage of the present framework is to extend the OSI model upwards in a fashion
consistent with the original OSI vision, and to do so in a complete fashion that captures all of
HCI in the top layers. The 3 HCI layers are conceived as representing three distinct aspects
of HCI that can be summarized as 1)what a user wants to do in the abstract sense (i.e., the
need), 2) how that need is acted upon by the human, and, 3) the artifacts that the user
employs (hardware, software, etc.).

In the spirit of the original OSI model, there are obviously many plausible sublayers to each of
the HCI layers (see principles 11 and 12 in [25]). For example, one might propose partitioning
Layer 9 into Sensation, Perception, Cognition, MetaCognition and so forth. But these do seem
to form a class whose nature is described by Human Performance (principle 4). Likewise,
Layer 8 can be divided into the physical input/output devices such as keyboards, printed
pages, microphones and speakers, etc., and the higher level I/O device, for example, the GUI.
Again, this distinction can be made, but for the user, the device is the interface because that

5
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

is what is experienced directly. Furthermore, these three HCI layers capture another essence
of the OSI layers; the interlayer information relay. Once Layer 7 of OSI (Application) has
returned the data to a format expected by the application the OSI layers relinquish control.
This is where the HCI layers start to translate the data into a form appropriate to Layer 10.
The strong statement here is that the lower OSI layers are only successful to the extent that
they satisfy the requirements at these HCI layers, and in particular at the top-most Layer 10.
This was expressed by Shenker [22]:

“By what criteria do we evaluate a particular network architecture? The Internet was
designed to meet the needs of users, and so any evaluative criteria must reduce, in essence,
to the following question: how happy does this architecture make the users?” p 1178.
4.2 QoS vs QoE (Benefit 1):
The OSI+HCI concept can be used to crystallize Shenker’s [22] argument about user happi-
ness and which layer(s) might be responsible for any shortcoming. HCI practitioners can look
at the HCI layers and say things like: “Trustworthiness? That is a longterm Layer 10 issue.”,
“Should we use a browser sidebar to help website navigation and reduce memory load? That
is a Layer 9 issue.”, “That dialog box blocked access to the text widget – must be a Layer 8
issue.” Certainly, issues at a given layer affect adjacent layers, but the value in the 3 HCI layer
scheme is to point out whose purview a problem is. In the same way, OSI layer practitioners
can look at where in the chain from Physical to Application the process is failing to deliver
to the HCI layers. Conversely, what design strategies can be put in place to maximize user
satisfaction. In the OSI layers, this is often referred to as QoS (Quality of Service) issues.

But what is QoS and what precisely is its goal? The latter question is easy from the human
factors perspective as suggested in [24]: “In our view, people are the starting point for overall
QOS considerations. Thus, the primary source of QOS requirements is the user”. We go fur-
ther by stating that the user-relevant construct is a user’s Quality of Experience (QoE). Thus,
our restatement of the above assertion is, “Thus, the primary source of QOS requirements is
QoE”. QoE is a Layer 8-10 concept. QoS exists at the OSI Layers. This demonstrates a key
benefit of the OSI+HCI framework: clarification of terminology that may be (mis)used across
the OSI/HCI boundary.

To demonstrate this, consider the results of a haphazard Web search of network vendor sites,
technology dictionaries, and press releases for the term “QoS”. The results are grouped by
general sense.

QoS as a user-perceived entity:

“XXXXX is throwing more bandwidth at its problem areas and believes management and
monitoring is the best way to offer users stable QoS.”
“Quality of Service (QoS) is a broad term used to describe the overall experience a user or
application will receive over a network.”
“[QoS is the] ... collective effect of service performances which determine the degree of satis-
faction of a user of the service.”

6
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

QoS as a quantified network or application trait:

“QoS ==> quality of service The performance properties of a network service, possibly includ-
ing throughput, transit delay, priority. Some protocols allow packets or streams to include
QoS requirements.”
“This results in unpredictable QoS in a best-effort network.”
“In the simplest sense, Quality of Service (QoS) means providing consistent, predictable data
delivery service. In other words, satisfying customer application requirements.”

QoS as a packet or network management mechanism:

“We are told in just about every venue that the Internet needs all sorts of quality-of-service
mechanisms to make it useful.”
“DiffServ provides the IP QoS necessary to support telephony-grade networks.”
“Quality of Service (QoS) refers to the classification of packets for the purpose of treating
certain classes or flows of packets in a particular way compared to other packets.”

QoS as an effect of packet or network management mechanisms:

“Quality of Service (QoS) is to the ability of a network element (e.g. an application, host
or router) to have some level of assurance that its traffic and service requirements can be
satisfied.”

This looseness of language (having QoS simultaneously be a state, a cause, an effect, a

measurement, and a subjective experience) is clearly a difficulty. We propose that in cases
where QoS is being used to refer to the effects on the perceptions or opinions of the users,
the term “QoE” (Quality of Experience) be used instead. QoE is thus a term relevant to
Layers 8-10. The term “QoS” is best understood when it is used to refer to packet or network
management practices, and this includes such OSI-level technologies and DiffServ and MPLS.
Finally, some other terminology is needed for the other uses of “QoS” that refer to network
traits and measurements (perhaps “QoT”, Quality of Transmission). In using these terms,
then, we can make statements like: “QoS mechanisms can be used to obtain a certain level of
QoT that will assure a pleasing and acceptable QoE”.

This also points out a critical difference in the language that must be used in relating QoE to
the success of QoS implementations. First, if there are no users, there is no QoE, though QoS
may exist. Second, those who talk about QoS discuss such things as packet drop probability
and delay and their higher order moments, ie., packet loss rates and jitter. They also discuss
queuing, bandwidth, tail-drops, and buffer sizes. This is is all relevant terminology in their
7-layer domain. However, most of these terms and concepts are invalid in any discussion of
QoE (see [22]). Users experience delay, distortion, and consistency. Think about the user
experience of web-browsing. What the users see is a page that loads satisfactorily (common
estimates for a high QoE are in the 2-10 second range [26]) or it takes too long (low QoE
may lead to abandonment). This delay is directly perceived. Users do not experience packet

7
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

loss. The Layer 7 and below protocols usually take care of packet loss by resending the
lost packets, but this takes time so the loss is experienced as delay. In addition, the user
experiences aggregate delay directly as opposed to the individual delay contributors such as
serialization, transmission, server lag, etc. Thus, “[F]rom the user’s viewpoint, delay is delay.
Therefore, any delay due to server processing, and data access from multiple sources will have
to be considered along with the traditional calculations in taxing the user’s patience” [26].

Users also experience distortion. In services such as VoIP (Voice over IP) or streaming
audio/video, lost packets and tardy packets (which because of the time-sensitive nature
of these services, are effectively lost) are experienced as mutes, clicks, and other distor-
tions. Fortunately the human sensory/perceptual system has a huge capacity for interpo-
lation/extrapolation and there are redundancies in the information that can be exploited to
recover the communication. Layer 9 can recover for problems at Layer 8 and below.

Finally, users experience consistency, which can happen over several time scales. For example,
in a web-browsing session, a user may note that delay (time between a click and the appearance
of the page on the browser) varies. This is most obvious when clicking the “back” button
depending on whether the page is loaded from cache or retrieved anew, especially if some
transient event such as network congestion ( and OSI layer concern) causes a reget of the page
to be slower (an HCI concern).
4.3: End-to-end Perspective (Benefit 2):
Another by-product of the OSI+HCI perspective is a clarification of the oft-used but rarely
consistent term “end-to-end”. In discussions with network engineers and architects, it has
become painfully obvious that their idea of end-to-end frequently means “one-way from this
box to that box”, perhaps because they map the term onto the scope of their control or
responsibility (maybe their OSI layers). Clearly, from the HCI point of view end-to-end spans
the action-to-fulfillment scope. This means that a Layer 10 need proceeds down the HCI
layers, through the OSI layers, across the network to a server or other human and then across
the reverse path. Therefore, we claim that the only true end-to-end perspective is from Layer
10 through the network/hardware and back again to the same Layer 10. This is based on
the earlier assertion that people interact with technology as a way to satisfy Layer 10 needs
and that what they experience directly is the sum total of delay (i.e., round-trip delay) and
aggregate distortion.
4.4: Category Shift (Benefit 3):
With the focus placed clearly on Layer 10 as the driver for the rest of the layers, we can use
the OSI+HCI model to design and de-risk applications and services; that is, identify matches
and gaps between what the 3 HCI layers require, and what the 7 OSI layers can provide.

One attempt to quantify the delay requirements for the 3 HCI layers proposes that there are
4 general delay categories that are meaningful from a user perspective [10]. (The exact number

8
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

of categories and their extents does not limit the instructional value of the present discussion.
See also, [23][19] for converging concepts.) For bulk services such as USENET and mailing
lists, the delay requirements are easily 100s of seconds or perhaps 100s of minutes because
they are unattended — the user is not waiting expectantly for the contents. For timely
services such as e-mail collection or start of playout of streaming media the requirement is
on the order of 10 or so seconds. For responsive applications such as web-browsing, voice
messaging, and e-commerce, delays on the order of a few seconds are tolerable. Finally, for
highly interactive services (e.g., telnet, voice-calls, remote control) acceptable delays are in
the low 100s of milliseconds. It is important to note that only round-trip delay is relevant
in HCI terms. The user does not know or care about OSI issues such as per-hop behaviour
nor the wonders of IP routing.

Response Times in each Category

Interactive Responsive Timely Bulk
≈ 10−1 s ≈ 100 s ≈ 101 s > 102 s

Fig. 3 Four general categories of applications based on tolerable delay

for acceptable QoE (after [10]).

These categories are point estimators for acceptable QoE and prescribe what the OSI layers
must provide in each case. If the lower layers cannot meet (because they are too slow, too
bandwidth constrained, etc.) the upper layer requirements, then, alternate ways to address
Layer 10 must be found by shifting the application to a less-demanding category (i.e., a
rightward shift in Figure 3)

Consider, for example, early 2.5G and 3G wireless cellular data networks (GPRS, 1XRTT).
It is known that these networks will perform at or below the levels of dialup V.90 modem (see
[8]) especially when mobile. Such networks will exhibit relatively low and variable bandwidth
(10-60kb/s), long round-trip delay (100s of ms) and periods of disconnectivity due to cell
reselection, radio fading, or obstruction. Therefore, common desktop office applications that
are designed for networks with high bandwidth (10s or 100s of Mb/s), low round-trip delay (10s
of ms or less), and constant connectivity will not provide a high QoE in a wireless environment.
Users will experience long delays in downloading e-mail and web pages, failed connections,
very slow uploads, and perhaps interfaces that appear to freeze while waiting for data.

From the 10-Layer model perspective, one could say that such network performance (ex-
perienced as interface performance) is likely not to satisfy Layer 10, 9, and 8 requirements.
However, the Layer 10 focus asks “what need was the user trying to address” and how can
this be achieved given what we know about performance of the OSI layers in this wireless
case. If the Layer 10 need was human-human communication, then the goal is to find Layer 9

9
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

and below strategies to accomplish this given the nature of the network. We might disqualify
voice communication (interactive) due to excessive delay or packet loss and instead consider
alternate methods to achieve the human-human communication. For example, a voice mes-
sage rather than a voice call might suffice. As the Layer 8 and below resources become more
constrained (network resources, terminal capabilities, etc.) one might consider chat, e-mail, or
SMS (Short Messaging Service) noting of course that there are different social aspects [15] to
these methods. In going from voice to messaging to SMS we shifted the category and may
have still satisfied the Layer 10 need (i.e., respected the semantics of the users’ intent [17]).

Thus, knowing the need and translating it into an application that can satisfy the need given
resource limitations can improve the odds of a higher QoE. Users may be willing to sacrifice
some aspects of resolution (that is, they may tolerate distortion, low-resolution screens, low
frame-rate, etc.) to gain economy or speed. In fact relatively large quality reductions (in
the colour, size, and spatial frequency domains) are well tolerated [16][17]. When network
characteristics will not provide a suitable transport to make a given application perform at
high QoE, then the goal is to rework the application into something that will fit in the
constraints of the OSI Layers, but address the Layer 10 requirements satisfactorily.

5. Conclusion
The new OSI+HCI model (Figure 3) provides a consistent language to help bridge different
disciplines and serves as an aid in deciding in which discipline a concern falls. It also makes
clear what a complete end-to-end perspective involves. Finally, the new OSI+HCI reference
model provides a strategy for ensuring that the applications can operate satisfactorily within
network limitations and still address the Layer 10 need.

10. HUMAN NEEDS

HCI 9. HUMAN PERFORMANCE
8. DISPLAY
7. APPLICATION
6. PRESENTATION
5. SESSION
OSI 4. TRANSPORT
3. NETWORK
2. DATA LINK
1. PHYSICAL

Fig. 4 The complete 7+3 layer OSI+HCI model.

10
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

References
[1] Akscyn, R., McCracken, D., & Yoder, E. KMS: A Distributed Hypermedia Systems for
Managing Knowledge in Organizations, In Hypertext ’87 Proceedings, ACM, New York,
1988.
[2] Barnard, P., & May, J. Interactions with advanced graphical interfaces and the deployment
of latent human knowledge, In F. Paterno (Ed) Eurographics Workshop on the Design,
Specification and Verification of Interactive Systems, 15-48. Berlin, Springer Verlag, 1994.
[3] Boff, K.R., Kaufman, L., & Thomas J.P. (Eds) Handbook of Perception and Human Per-
formance, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1986.
[4] Bouch, A., & Sasse, M.A. It ain’t what you charge, it’s the way that you do it: A user
perspective of network QoS and pricing, In Proceedings of the IFIP/IEEE International
Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM’99), (May 24-28, 1999, Boston), 639-
655.
[5] Bouch, A., Sasse, M., & DeMeer, H.G. Of packets and people: A user-centred approach to
Quality of Service, In Proceedings IWQoS 2001.
[6] Gbaguidi, G., Verscheure, O., & Hubaux, J.P. A new flexible and modular QoS map-
ping framework based on psychophysics, In MMNS’97 Conference, (July 1997, Montreal,
Canada).
[7] Guo, X., & Pattinson, C. Quality of Service Requirements for Multimedia Communications
Paper presented at Time and the Web, Staffordshire University, 19th June 1997.
[8] Gurtov, A. Effect of Delays on TCP Performance, In Proceedings of IFIP Personal Wireless
Communications, (August 2001, Lappeenranta, Finland).
[9] ITU-T Rec. X.200. (July 1994). Information Technology - Open Systems Interconnection
- Basic Reference Model: The Basic Model. Also known as ISO/IEC 7498-1.
[10] ITU-T G.1010 (November 2001). Telecommunication Standardization Sector of ITU.
Series G: Transmission Systems and Media, Digital Systems and Networks: End-user
multimedia QoS categories.
[11] John, B.E. Why GOMS? Interactions, 2, 80-89.
[12] Johnson, P. Mobile Interaction; a resource view, Mobile Communications: Understanding
Users, Adoption & Design CHI 2002 Workshop, April 1 & 2, 2001
[13] Jung, J.I. Quality of service in telecommunications. I. Proposition of a QoS framework
and its application to B-ISDN, IEEE Communications Magazine, 34, 8, (1996), 108 -111.
[14] Jung, J.I. Quality of service in telecommunications .II. Translation of QoS parameters
into ATM performance parameters in B-ISDN, IEEE Communications Magazine, 34, 8,
(1996), 112 -117.
[15] Koskinen, T. Mobile asynchronous communication: exploring the potential for converged
applications, Personal Technologies, 4, (2000), 113-122.

11
 ∗∗ Draft copy (April 15, 2002). Do not cite ∗∗

[16] Kunz, T., El Shentenawy, M., Gaddah, A., & Hafez, R. Image transcoding for wire-
less WWW access: The user perspective, In Proceedings of Multimedia Computing and
Networking, M. Kienzle and P. Shenoy (Eds), SPIE, Vol. 4673, pages 28-33, January 2002.
[17] McIlhagga, M., Light, A., & Wakeman, I. Towards a design methodology for adaptive
applications. In Proceedings of the Fourth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference
on Mobile Computing and Networking, 1998.
[18] Nahrstedt, K., & Smith, J. A Service Kernel for Multimedia Endpoints, Multimedia: Ad-
vanced Teleservices and High-Speed Communication Architectures, Ralf Steinmetz (Ed),
chapter I, pp. 8-22, Lecture Notes in Computer Science LNCS-868, Springer Verlag, 1994.
[19] Nielsen, J. it Usability Engineering (Ch 5.). Academic Press, (1992), ISBN 0-12-518406-9.
[20] Perry, M., O’Hara, K., Sellen, A., Brown, B., & Harper, R. Dealing with mobility: under-
standing access anytime, anywhere, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction,
8, (2001), 323-347.
[21] Richards, A., Rogers, G., Witana, V., & Antoniades, M. Mapping User
Level QoS from a Single Parameter. In Proceedings of the International
Conference on Multimedia Networks and Services (MMNS ’98), Nov. 1998.
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/richards98mapping.html
[22] Shenker, S. Fundamental Design Issues for the Future Internet. it IEEE Journal on
Selected Areas in Communications, 13, 7, September 1995, 1176-1188.
[23] Teal, S.L., Rudnicky, A.I. A performance model of system delay and user strategy selec-
tion, In Proceedings of ACM CHI ’92, ACM. New York, NY, 295-302.
[24] Vogel, A., Kerherve, B., von Bochmann, G., & Gecsei, J. Distributed multimedia and
QOS: a survey, IEEE Multimedia, (Summer 1995), 2, 2, 10-19.
[25] Zimmerman, H. OSI reference model - the ISO model of architecture for open systems
intercommunications, IEEE Transactions on Communications, COM-28 (April 1980), 425-
432.
[26] Zona Research. The need for speed II, Zona Market Bulletin, 5, 2001.

12