Public Awareness and Attitude about Smart Services: A Study in United Arab Emirates.

Abstract

The adoption and efficiency of mobile smart services are still in the early stages worldwide. This is especially true for governmental services requiring relatively complex business process and interactive decision making. In addition, social and cultural reasons may both support and hinder their adoption, e.g. the human factors in the business process which may be missed when the service and the communication are automated. In this paper, an exploratory survey is conducted to examine the users' perception of the smart services offered by the government among the citizens in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The main conclusion is that smart services should be viewed and designed as a part a wider socio-technical system which includes a complex network of inter-relations between the service and its business, social and cultural context. This is mainly to ensure consistency and compatibility amongst the various ways to get the same services achieved still without hindering the distinct features of accessing services via smart technology.