The Effect of Simplicity and Perceived Control on Perceived Ease of Use

As the complexity dramatically increases with technological development, the ease of use of technology has been regarded as a critical factor to adpot. This study extends existing Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) proposed by Moon and Kim (2001) by introducing simplicity and perceived control. Simplicity has recently been suggested as an important concept for a successful user interface design by John Maeda (2004; 2006) of the MIT Media Lab. The concept of simplicity not only refers to a simple layout, as stated in previous studies, but also embraces interface organization, functionality, structure, work flow and framework. From the literature review, we define simplicity as the antecedent to perceived ease of use and classify it into four sub-dimensions: Reduction, Organization, Integration, and Prioritizing. In addition to simplicity, we also bring in control as an important antecedent to perceived ease of use. Control theory explains that control is conceptually related to the direct manipulation of an object and also related to users’ psychological status when they use the object. In this study we demonstrate the role of simplicity and perceived control in the existing TAM. We then apply the extended TAM to the blog service. A survey was conducted for a pilot test (n=59). The results indicate that both perceived control and simplicity influence ease of use in the TAM. This finding asserts the importance of the simplicity and Corresponding Author Lee et al. / The Effect of Simplicity and Perceived Control on Perceived Ease of Use -2perceived control for the web interface design.