The fields of human-computer interaction and interaction design are increasingly dealing with the issues of fun, enjoyment and pleasure throughout the last two decades. The concept of fun becomes a concern in the development of usability of a product. Fun is an attribute considered to be an emotional aspect of interaction of a product. The evaluations and interpretations of fun on products are, therefore, subjective and personal which is peculiar to a user. A study, hence, was conducted to explore the term fun in everyday experience products. The aim is to understand what features and characteristics of a product make it fun and enjoyable to use. A total of twenty-nine users participated in the study. Each participant was interviewed individually in order for his/her personal attributes, interpretations and evaluations of fun to be elicited from a pool of thirty-two products. The participants' responses to open-ended questions were qualitatively analyzed by the use of content analysis procedure. The collected data was then grouped under four main categories which are visual aspect, functionality, usability, and contextual content. The findings of the study show that visual aspect of a product is the most concerned feature, followed by contextual content, usability and functionality, when evaluating the fun in everyday experience products.
Despite the critical need to know how consumers' perceptions of Web sites influence their behavior, and especially their intention to revisit or purchase, there is no extant general measure for evaluating Web sites and no consensus on what such an instrument should measure. The authors used the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Technology Acceptance Model to develop the WebQual instrument for consumer evaluation of Web sites. They refined it through a literature review and interviews with Web designers and users, and tested it using four samples of Web consumers. WebQual includes 12 dimensions (informational fit-to-task, tailored information, trust, response time, ease of understanding, intuitive operations, visual appeal, innovativeness, emotional appeal, consistent image, on-line completeness, relative advantage) and shows strong measurement validity. It is a highly validated instrument that can provide both wide-and fine-grained measurements of organizational Web sites.
Although many researchers have raised concerns about the lack of theoretical underpinnings for the user evaluation construct and the lack of measurement validity for specific instruments measuring it, the construct is still widely used in IS research. This paper reports on the development and measurement validity of a diagnostic tool used in recently published research to evaluate an organization's overall information systems and services. A distinctive feature of this instrument is that it is conceptually based on the task-technology fit theory in which the correspondence between information systems functionality and task requirements leads to positive user evaluations, and positive performance impacts. Specifically, the instrument development was guided by a task model of managerial decision making using recorded organizational information. This model suggested the different information systems functionalities required by users for that task, which then serve as the basis for a "task-technology fit" (TTF) instrument. The instrument thus measures the degree to which an organization's information systems and services meet the information needs of its managers. An extensive test of the measurement validity of the instrument is conducted using a sample of 357 users in 10 companies. It is found to have excellent reliability and discriminant validity for 12 dimensions of TTF, and also exhibits strong predictive validity. Finally, the instrument is compared to two other well-known user evaluation instruments. Though no single instrument can meet all needs, the instrument presented here should be considered an attractive option for researchers and practitioners seeking to measure the effectiveness of organizational information systems.
Subject Areas: User Evaluations of IS Success, Management Information Systems, and Survey Research/Design.
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