Construct · 6 names · 14 citations
Different names. Different fields. One construct. One map.
● jangle · six names, one construct Nearest construct by meaningeffort expectancycompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to perceived ease of use is effort expectancy.
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The degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort: Davis's 1989 definition, built from the same fourteen-to-six item pruning as usefulness and validated in the same two studies. The six items ask whether the system is easy to learn, controllable, clear, flexible, easy to become skilful with, and easy to use. Davis found ease of use predicted use mostly through usefulness, which is why the construct has spent thirty years as the junior partner. Venkatesh's 2000 model of its determinants split it into anchors (self-efficacy, anxiety, playfulness, perceptions of external control) and adjustments (enjoyment, objective usability) that grow with experience, a map of its antecedents that reads like a list of this page.[1][2]
The degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use, Rogers's attribute, the only one of the five that is negatively related to adoption. Tornatzky and Klein's 1982 meta-analysis found it one of the three attributes consistently related to adoption, alongside compatibility and relative advantage. Moore and Benbasat reversed the sign in 1991, called the PCI subscale ease of use, and adapted its items from Davis; the sign flip and the rename happened in the same paper. What differs is that Rogers's construct is a perception of the innovation, not of the effort it asks of the adopter, and it was originally a reason not to adopt.[3][4][5]
The degree of ease associated with the use of the system, Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis's 2003 label for the pool of perceived ease of use, PCI ease of use, and MPCU complexity. They took four items from the parents, found the effect on intention strongest for women, older workers, and the inexperienced, and found it fading after the first months of use. UTAUT2 carried the construct into consumer settings unchanged. Its extension history and its critics are on the effort expectancy page; here it is where the lineage ends.[6][7]
A judgement of one's capability to use a computer, Compeau and Higgins's 1995 application of Bandura's self-efficacy, measured by asking whether the respondent could complete a job with a new package under ten conditions of decreasing support, from having only the manuals to having someone show them first. It is a belief about the self, not about the system, and it is an antecedent: Venkatesh's 2000 model found it the strongest anchor for perceived ease of use, and Compeau and Higgins found it drove outcome expectations, affect, and use. It sits on this map because studies keep measuring it with ease-of-use wording and because the two correlate highly enough to be mistaken for each other; the referent is what tells them apart.[8][2]
Two constructs that between them supply the mechanism behind every perception on this page. Sweller's cognitive load is the demand a task places on working memory; his 1988 problem-solving studies showed that means–ends search consumed the capacity needed for learning, so a harder-feeling task can also be a worse-taught one. Alter and Oppenheimer's 2009 review united the fluency literatures (perceptual, linguistic, retrieval, conceptual) into one metacognitive signal: the subjective ease of processing, which people misread as truth, liking, familiarity, and confidence. Ease here is measured by task performance and by ratings of felt ease, and what differs is that it is a property of a person's processing during a task, not a belief about a system, and that its effects on judgement are the object of study rather than a nuisance.[9][10]
The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use, the ISO 9241-11 definition of 1998, which makes usability a measured property of a product-in-context rather than a belief. Nielsen's 1993 textbook set out learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction as its components and the discount usability test as its method. Brooke's System Usability Scale, a ten-item questionnaire written in 1986 and published in 1996, gives the field a subjective score that correlates with ease-of-use scales but is anchored to a session of actual use. Hornbæk's 2006 review of 180 studies found the three ISO components measured inconsistently and rarely together. What differs is that usability is observed as well as reported, and belongs to the product, not the user.[11][12][13]
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