The only requirements for our volunteers were that they own a video-enabled portable device and that they use the device for watching video at least once a week.Participants were pre-screened for the study by either a phone conversation or by answering a series of questions via email. We excluded the use of laptoponly mobile users since we chose to focus on purely hand-held mobile viewing experiences. We broadcast a request for volunteers via email. Some factors which may affect mobile video usage such as the use of public transportation and the availability of media services differ widely from country to country [4]. Therefore, we chose participants from both the US and UK to see
if any geographic trends emerged. Our final participant group consisted of 28 volunteers (13 from the UK and 15 from the US), both male and female, ranging in age from 14 to 47. Each participant was compensated with a gift certificate at the completion of their interview valued at 50 British pounds or 50 US dollars. At the start of the study, each participant was given a small diary notebook and asked to record their mobile video experiences for a three week period. We asked them to record the date, circumstance (e.g., “on the train home from work” or “waiting for my mom to pick me up from practice”), and activity (e.g., “watching Family Guy” or “looking for free videos on iTunes”) for every mobile video episode they had during the given time period. See Figure A for the instructions included in the diary notebook, and see Figure B for an
example page from a single diary entry of one of our participants. We encouraged them to record not only when they watched mobile video, but also when they performed other related activities as well, such as searching for or purchasing content. At the end of the three week diary period, we met with each participant individually for a one-hour interview. Some of the younger participants were interviewed in pairs if they
had a friend who was also in the study in order to help them be more comfortable and communicative in an interview setting. During the interview, we had participants talk through their diary entries with us and discuss in more detail the circumstances and
motivations of each experience. Each interview was either video-recorded or audio-recorded to ensure accuracy in quoting the participants, and we kept their diary notebooks for further review.