ArticleRead (15): User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View

User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View. by Venkatesh, V. Morris, M. G. Davis, G. B. Davis, F. D. In MIS Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 27; No.3, pp 425-478

The current information management issues are primarily based on the behavioral science. The primary goal of Venkatesh et al. (2003) is to accomplish a coherent picture of the main lines of the work on individual acceptance of information technology, and further integrate them into a unified theoretical model: the Unified theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT).

The authors review the theoretical and empirical literature on the information technology acceptance models with valuable discussions on 8 major models. After the work of model comparison, which are identified similarly in roots from theories of psychology and sociology, empirical work concerned with the adjustment of "usage" (the dependent variable) and "the role of intention" (a predictor of behavior) to 32 relevant constructs across 8 models is considered. Data from 4 organizations over a 6-month period with 3 points of measurement is utilized to test these relevant constructs.

Results show that:

First, at least one construct of each model was significant and influential, and there are 7 constructs identified as direct determinants of intention or usage.

Second, several other constructs were significantly fading out.

Third, the key differences are settings in constructs related to social influence between voluntary vs. mandatory settings.

Based on these three empirical findings, 4 key moderators (gender, age, experience and voluntariness of use) are provided to justified four main constructs: (1)performance expectancy, (2) effort expectancy, (3) social influence (4) facilitating conditions. The proposed model was later justified by two new organization data.

Finally. the perceptive reader might recognize some likeness of the four constructs of this UTAUT model with two main constructs of the Online Community Framework (OCF): sociability and usability (de Souza and Preece, 2004).

OCF is based on the theory of Human Computer Interaction and focus on two main dimensions: (1) the analyzing of online community their social interaction within the community (sociability); and (2) the understanding of what will happen at the human-computer interface (usability).

While the UTAUT and associated user behavior models intend to serve to predict user intention and usage as a result to provide prescriptive guidance for organization managers and system designers, the OCF-based analyses as to understand how technology may or must be used to improve usability and sociability and further to prevent problems in computer-mediated communication and social interaction brings about different theoretical perspectives in which the semiotic engineering can be served as a potentially valuableble alternative to view management information systems.

ArticleRead (13): User Experience at Google: focus on the user and all else will follow

User Experience at Google: focus on the user and all else will follow. by Au, I., et al. (2008) In CHI 2008 Proceedings Extended Abstracts, ACM Press (2008), pp 3681-3686

Which research approaches should ensure that user experiences are interpreted to reflect underlined norms of online users, and promise a better identification for designers to predict user behaviors in the system design process? The case of Google in this article demonstrates a multi-method of user experience based on its corporate philosophy: “Follow the user and all else will follow”.

On the one hand, Google have traditionally sought to adopt their data-driven approach by applying web analytics of quantitative investigation in reflecting what is happening. On the other hand, built on the qualitative approach, Google interpret contextual factors of why users interact with the system designs via field research, diary studies, face-to-face interview. Such an approach is applied by the Google user experience (UX) team in exploring user behavior of Google Maps for the mobile application. They follow a method called Mediated Data Collection approach, in which participants and mobile technologies are assumed to mediate data collection about use in natural settings. Therefore, methods such as prior research on log analysis, recorded usage, focus group study, or field trial, telephone interviews, lab debriefs are combined to utilize the investigations on user behaviour.

This article stresses the bottom-up company culture as a key for designers and project managers to understand the essence of user experience. Three techniques are employed by: (1) injecting the corporate DNA to educate and train engineers and PMs about user experience (i.e. the ‘Life of a User’ training program and ‘Field Fridays’) (2) scaling to support hundreds of projects by UX team (3) helping focus projects on user needs by UX team or user research knowledge base.

Unlike the traditional desktop software design updated on annual basis, Google UX team practices some agile techniques to respond the rapid web cycles. For examples, solutions include guerilla usability testing, prototyping on the fly, online experimentation or enabling a live instant messaging dialogue between observers and moderator during lab-based testing.

The above three approaches are also combined with a global product perspective of designing for multiple countries. In sum, these 4 combinations of the Google case provide us an alternate analytic framework, and best enlist the methodologies for the studying of online user experience practically and implicitly.