Nikola Marangunić

Technology acceptance model: a literature review from 1986 to 2013

With the ever-increasing development of technology and its integration into users’ private and professional life, a decision regarding its acceptance or rejection still remains an open question. A respectable amount of work dealing with the technology acceptance model (TAM), from its first appearance more than a quarter of a century ago, clearly indicates a popularity of the model in the field of technology acceptance. Originated in the psychological theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behavior, TAM has evolved to become a key model in understanding predictors of human behavior toward potential acceptance or rejection of the technology. The main aim of the paper is to provide an up-to-date, well-researched resource of past and current references to TAM-related literature and to identify possible directions for future TAM research. The paper presents a comprehensive concept-centric literature review of the TAM, from 1986 onwards. According to a designed methodology, 85 scientific publications have been selected and classified according to their aim and content into three categories such as (i) TAM literature reviews, (ii) development and extension of TAM, and (iii) modification and application of TAM. Despite a continuous progress in revealing new factors with significant influence on TAM’s core variables, there are still many unexplored areas of model potential application that could contribute to its predictive validity. Consequently, four possible future directions for TAM research based on the conducted literature review and analysis are identified and presented.

Usability evaluation of web portals

The paper reports on the experience concerning the design of a ldquodiscount evaluationrdquo of broad-reach Web portal usability. The methodology employs a range of assessment methods, providing a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative evaluation feedback. It advocates a number of usability test methods along with specialistspsila inspection. The results indicate that chosen research instruments, measures and methods for usability testing were consistent. Conversely, the results of the guideline inspection did not conform to the ones obtained through the user testing. Although showing respectable potential, it raised some concerns.

Development of the evaluation form for expert inspections of web portals

Web portals are a special breed of web sites, providing a large and diverse user population with a blend of information, services and facilities. Due to the lack of heuristics for the design and evaluation of general portals, we have conducted an experimental work to create research instrument for expert inspections. A set of 36 equally-levelled guidelines was developed to measure the hypothetical usability categories which reflect the four most distinctive elements of the contemporary web design process. The Portal Guidelines for expert inspections prove valuable to both novice inspectors and HCI experts, but further research will be required to validate the findings of this study.

Towards a Cost-Effective Evaluation Approach for Web Portal Interfaces

A cost-effective approach for web portal usability evaluation is presented in this chapter. Due to specifics of portals as web sites, mainly referring to their structure and media specificities along with diversity of users, tasks and workflows, distinct assessment approaches should be employed. Methodology brings together laboratory-based testing along with experts’ inspection and produces valuable results for users and developers at a low cost. Compared to our first study, user assessment applied a faster and less expensive procedure, providing stability of measures with reduced sample size, while inspection employed fewer specialists with higher expertize and a simpler evaluation form. Directions of future work are identified.

The Influence of Cognitive and Personality Characteristics on User Navigation: An Empirical Study

An empirical study aiming to investigate the influence of cognitive and personality characteristics on user web navigation is presented in this paper. Individual cognitive abilities and personality dimensions were identified and validated, and expected correlations with results of objective variables were postulated. Effectiveness, efficiency and orientation within a web site were the measured objective variables. Measures of spatial ability and extraversion were correlated with objective accomplishment measures and orientation. A high statistically significant correlation was found between spatial ability measure and orientation measure. Conversely, no other correlations were supported. Future work will be significantly improved by employing new variables, measures and instruments, especially for user personality dimensions.