ABSTRACT For the average person, the Internet is still too hard to use. We report evidence from HomeNet, a field trial in Pittsburgh that tries to understand how people use the Internet. Despite our reducing technological and economic barriers to use, families had problems connecting and using the Internet. We show that help calls, however, are not a good indicator of usability, since it is the "enthusiasts" and people with instrumental tasks to accomplish who call. INTRODUCTION Like the telephone and television before it, household computing has the potential to change how average people live. In the field of HCI, it is now generally accepted that designers, developers, educators, and managers should understand how people use technology in the context of their daily lives. However, as yet there are few systematic reports in the literature about on-going residential use of home computing. HomeNet is a field trial at Carnegie Mellon University that tries to understand people's use of the Internet. We are carefully documenting how members of households use on-line services such as electronic mail, computerized bulletin boards, on-line chat groups, and the World Wide Web. This report describes usability problems we have observed in the first sample of 48 families with teenagers (133 individuals). In the HomeNet field trial, we attempted to overcome economic and technological barriers to use. We provided each family with a Macintosh computer with 14.4 kbps modem connected to a dedicated telephone line. Each family member above age 8 received a full Internet account. All computers included a turnkey system for access to the entire Internet and included software for using electronic mail, newsgroups, the World Wide Web, MUDs, and special HomeNet chat newsgroups. Our software configuration allowed family members to use Internet services without learning the details of any operating system. They also received approximately three hours of training.

Support was provided through a help newsgroup, and a telephone help desk staffed by college students. Sample characteristics Our sample was recruited through the high schools of four demographically diverse neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In each school, we approached students who worked on the school newspaper and their families, as well as at least one journalism teacher and that teacher's family. The common bond of journalism gave students from different schools something to discuss as we put the project on-line. The HomeNet sample, although not a representative sample of the US, is demographically more diverse than current Internet users. Fifty-seven percent are female; 42% are teens; 24% are members of minority groups; and 25% have household incomes less than the median US household income. Our earlier research [1] documented that in 1995, before participants in our sample had actually used the Internet, they reported positive attitudes towards the Internet but only vague ideas of what it would be good for. A large minority did not know what downloading or email was. Given their vague beliefs and knowledge, it is probably not surprising that many had difficulty getting started. We expected that people with more computer skill and motivation would be likelier to overcome these difficulties, and would, in turn, be more likely to use the Internet frequently. However, we thought that as everyone learned how to use the computer and what the Internet could do for them, computer skill would predict Internet usage less well. We were wrong. Even after a year of experience with the Internet, computer skill still predicted Internet usage significantly. This result held true across different gender and age groups WHAT WENT WRONG There is strong qualitative and quantitative evidence that some members of most of the families had problems using the Internet.