Interrogating user experiences with mobile phone technologies: a multi-method qualitative study of user experiences with the iPhone

Abstract

This study sets out to analyze the technology acceptance decisions by the users of one smartphone (iPhone). Variations of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), after first proposed by Davis (1986), have been widely used in the field of information systems research. This paper proposes extensions to TAM from user experience perspective. Hassenzahl (2003), in his user experience model, finds product attributes as important in forming the character of the product and influencing the user’s behavior. Using the extended version of TAM, I find that manipulation function of pragmatic attributes influences usefulness. I also find stimulation and identification functions of hedonic attributes to impact attitude and actual use. However, evocation has not been found important for either attitude or actual use. This research also develops an ethnographic decision tree model (EDTM) to predict the iPhone acceptance decisions for the sample and the model provides an acceptable success rate. Both the studies (extension of TAM and EDTM) utilize qualitative procedures as the research approach.