The design, implementation and usage analysis of an event-based consumer mashup system

Mashups are web applications that combine data, content and application functionality from multiple sources to produce a single value-added application and they have been gaining wide popularity over the past few years. Due to the inherent programming difficulties required to integrate data and services from multiple sources, mashups have largely been a programmer’s affair. Based on the research question “How to bring end-users closer to creating and using mashups”, this paper presents the design and implementation of a user-centred mashup system which provides greater motivation for mashup usage by relating every-day calendar events to useful gadgets. The system is evaluated by 131 end-users to test for usability. Also, the system is used as a representative example in proposing a user-acceptance model for consumer mashups.