A 3-dimensional approach to assessing end-user quality of service

Due to the increasing popularity of applications such as media streaming and videoconferencing, multimedia traffic dominates the Internet today. So far, research into Quality of Service (QoS) for networked multimedia has focused on technical performance at the network level, rather than the quality experienced by the end-user. With a more service-oriented culture, however, the notion of user-centered QoS is gaining hold; this raises the question of how to measure quality experienced by end-users in meaningful terms. This paper introduces a 3-dimensional approach to assessing audio and video quality in networked multimedia applications: measuring task performance, user satisfaction and user cost (in terms of physiological impact). We argue that - for any given application - the relative importance of each dimension needs to be determined, and assessment techniques selected accordingly.