Models and Theories in Human-Computer Interaction/TAM in software updates

TAM in software updates

As seen in a previous section discussing TAM, two main components are perceived usefulness of the technology and perceived ease of use. These in turn (according to Davis' original proposal regarding user's motivation in 1985) influence a user's attitude toward using the new technology. While TAM is supposed to be able to be a more quantitative measurement, it in turn underestimates the more qualitative issues involved in a user's attitude. The time it took a user to learn how to use the current software is not trivial and not all users' are going to be satisfied with having to relearn applications and programs as software is updated. A relatively recent example of user dissatisfaction of this case would be when Facebook (social media) pushes forward new user interfaces of its website. Both younger and older users will complain on the social media outlets about the new interface and how it isn't the same or not as good as the previous. This is not necessarily based on the true quality of the interface (although it may have issues) but rather on the user's unfamiliarity and sense of loss. The user loses their perceived ease of use when new software updates occur and the time lost having to learn or relearn software based on updates can affect the user's perceived usefulness of the software update as well. When an academic institution rolls out a new website or new Internet-based learning tool, the bugs that inevitably need to be found and corrected during the time after the rollout will affect users' ability to use the tools effectively on top of the issues seen in the Facebook (social media) example. If these issues are not given proper weight in TAM, then TAM itself does not properly account for the system use that will occur by the user as an end result.