Evaluating ISeeYou

The usefulness of ISeeYou to people engaging in information-seeking behaviours on the World-Wide Web was evaluated using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The results indicate that the ISeeYou technology is perceived to be useful and easy-to-use. This result encourages further development of the ISeeYou framework and technologies.

TAM has been repeatedly shown to be a reliable instrument for predicting the adoption of a new technology for a particular task. The factors measured by TAM are Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU).

Perceived usefulness is defined as ‘the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job.’ It is a measure of the extent to which a user believes a system would help them with the task they are trying to achieve.

Perceived ease-of-use is defined to be ‘the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort.’ It is a measure of how easy a user finds a system to use for the task they are carrying out. These constructs are measured by a survey that uses a set of established questions to collect user’s responses.

The questions used to measure PU are shown in Table 1. The questions used to measure PEOU are shown in Table 2. Responses are measured using a 7 item Likert scale ranging from Extremely Likely through to Extremely Unlikely.

Perceived Usefulness

PU1 Using I See You helps me find information on the web more quickly. PU2 Using I See You improves my performance when finding information on the web. PU3 Using I See You can increase my productivity when finding information on the web PU4 Using I See You can enhance my effectiveness when finding information on the web

Table 1 Scale items of the usefulness determinant

Perceived Ease-of-Use

PEOU1 Learning to use I See You is easy for me. PEOU2 I can use the I See You in a manner that helps me find information. PEOU3 My interaction with I See You is clear and understandable. PEOU4 In general, I find I See You easy to use.

Table 2 Scale items of the ease of use determinant

The TAM Evaluation was performed using students from three Masters level subjects at the University of Technology, Sydney. These subjects were chosen because it is expected that students have a reasonable level of proficiency using the web to find information, and are also expected to use the web for study-related activities during the subject. Participation in the evaluation was voluntary and anonymous in accordance with the guidelines of the UTS Human Research Ethics Committee.

Participants were asked to download and install ISeeYou. They then used ISeeYou while they engaged in their regular information-seeking behaviours, whether study related or otherwise. Participants were then prompted to fill out the survey instrument, which was hosted on the Institute for Interactive Media and Learning’s Survey Manager application.

The results were collated and then analysed using a Factor Analysis and a Reliability Analysis. The scale items were found to measure the expected two factors, and the Cronbach’s alpha calculation for the factors indicated that the measurements were reliable. The medians for the factors are shown in Table 3.

	Median
PU	3
PEOU	3

Table 3 PU and PEOU for ISeeYou

The median Perceived Usefulness of ISeeYou is 3. From this it can be concluded that it is likely that ISeeYou is perceived to be useful. The median Perceived Ease of Use of ISeeYou is 3. From this it can be concluded that it is likely that ISeeYou is perceived to be easy to use. These results indicate that a tool built using the ICU framework is perceived to be useful for people performing information-seeking behaviours on the World-Wide Web. This result supports further research into the use of the ICU framework as an approach to developing tools for Personal Information Management and tools for contextualising web-based information.