Technology Acceptance and User Experience: A Review of the Experiential Component in HCI

Understanding the mechanisms that shape the adoption and use of information technology is central to human-computer interaction. Two accounts are particularly vocal about these mechanisms, namely the technology acceptance model (TAM) and work on user experience (UX) models. In this study, we review 37 papers in the overlap between TAM and UX models to explore the experiential component of human-computer interactions. The models provide rich insights about what constructs influence the experiential component of human-computer interactions and about how these constructs are related. For example, the effect of perceived enjoyment on attitude is stronger than those of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. It is less clear why the relations exist and under which conditions the models apply. We discuss four of the main theories used in reasoning about the experiential component and, for example, point to the near absence of psychological needs and negative emotions in the models. In addition, most of the reviewed studies are not tied to specific use episodes, thereby bypassing tasks as an explanatory variable and undermining the accurate measurement of experiences, which are susceptible to moment-to-moment changes. We end by summarizing the implications of our review for future research.