The effects of security and traceability of blockchain on digital affordance

Abstract

PurposeThis study takes an affordance approach to explain how users perceive the affordance of user action within blockchain and examines how it influences the subsequent user experience. Focusing on the effect of trust on cognitive processes, the authors analyze how affordances in blockchains affect the user experience.Design/methodology/approachThe blockchain affordances are examined through a two-stage process. The authors employ a qualitative analysis based on insights gained from the current literature and interviews. The authors then apply a quantitative survey to examine the role of trust in interactions with blockchain services. A structural user model was tested in which their appreciation of affordances of blockchain predicted the trust and satisfaction.FindingsUsers' appreciation for transparency and reliability explained to what extent they trust and are satisfied, thereby suggesting the heuristic roles of trust in blockchains. The study findings indicate a heuristic role for trust regarding underlying links to technological and affective affordances. A user's cognitive heuristics affect their attitudes toward blockchain, in which technological features are processed through users' perceptions and experience.Research limitations/implicationsThe model contributes to the conceptualization of security, privacy and traceability along with trust, which is then linked to transparency and reliability. The findings show how the frame of affordances gains explanatory power by being linked to the concepts of affect and emotion. The heuristics of direct perception of security–traceability–privacy (STP) can be used to understand the trajectory of heuristics and ongoing choices of blockchain.Practical implicationsThe study results offer a lens through which to address the technology's most common problems by pairing user experience principles and heuristics to blockchain technologies. This study offers insights into the understanding of user actions related to blockchains and into practical implications for developing trust-based services. The results guide the application and tailoring of motivational affordances in blockchain.Originality/valueWhile blockchain technology has gained popularity and momentum, there has been little research on how specific features of blockchain technology create value. This study contributes to the research gap by highlighting the role and dimension of trust in relation to STP in blockchains and provides meaningful implications for theory and practice.

User and item-aware estimation of review helpfulness

“…Moreover, this selection supports recommender systems transparency by identifying appropriate feedback about items that can be used to explain the generated results. This improves traceability and trust which, as discussed by Shin (2020a), enhance user acceptance of services. Specifically, Shin et al (2020) have discovered that algorithmic experience "is inherently related to human understanding of fairness, transparency, and other conventional components of user-experience" which, in turn, are tightly connected to explainability.…”

Causal effects of affordance change on communication behavior: Empirical evidence from organizational and leadership social media use

“…Although ambiguity exists in a ordance's contemporary conceptualization and debates have not been settled on its ontology, such as whether or not a ordances exist independently of human perceptions, most scholars agree that research should consider the role of human actors to better understand the a ordance approach to the use of communication technologies (see Boyle & Cook, 2004;Burlamaqui & Dong, 2015;Dohn, 2009;Fayard & Weeks, 2014;Jones, 2003;Parchoma, 2014;Sanders, 1997). Some recent theoretical developments by conceptual articles, such as "perceived a ordances" and "imagined a ordances" (Fox & Holt, 2018;Nagy & Ne , 2015;Zhao, Liu, Tang, & Zhu, 2013), and empirical examinations of newly developed information technologies, such as blockchains and virtual reality (Shin, 2017;Shin & Hwang, 2020), have further foregrounded the necessity to consider human agency in a ordance studies. This relational view of a ordances contends that human agency, taking forms such as perceptions and interpretations, exerts in uences on how a ordances are eventually perceived and utilized by users for their digital behavior.…”

Benefit-Seeking or Risk-Taking? Examining the Portrayal of Cosmetic Surgery in Chinese News, 2000–2019

“…Concerns about the safety and risk of having CS speak to the nature of new technologies such as CS. As Shin and Hwang noted, the affordances of new technologies (e.g., security) link to users' trust and satisfaction [40]. Some of those relatively invasive surgical procedures (e.g., breast surgery) carry inherent risks.…”