Author(s) : Kyle B. Murray; Gerald Häubl

Assumptions and base statements

 

Incumbent: user’ used interface (either it have been chosen or assigned)

 

Human skills evolves with practices and habits. By repeating a pattern or using an interface they can get use to the skill level raise.

 

Cognitive-styles are a main way of thinking while reading this article. The authors take as an example the fact that freedom of choice affects interface preferences, the power law of practice has important implications. Choice and freedom matter in term of skill acquisition.

 

H1: Task completion time is lower for individuals who were initially constrained to using on interface, as compared to individuals who were always free to choose which interface they used.

 

Every little thing or detail is important:

– It take less than 50 milliseconds (Lindgaard et al. 2006) for a visitor to form an evaluation of a website

– Saving consumers as little as 15 to 20 seconds in a website can lead to a gain of market share as large as 100%

 

High skill, from higher practical, for an user imply an equal time-saving in his browsing experience, and so costs gets reduced.

 

H2: Preference for a particular interface is higher among individuals who were initially constrained to using interface than among those who were free to choose which interface they used.

H3: The effect of freedom of choice on interface preference is mediated by (incumbent interface) task completion times.

 

While it seems that it is preferable to constrain users’ choices, we have to take care of the psychological reactance. This phenomenon is well known and describe that when users are restrained they create a psychological reactance.

It also infer the perceived ease of use of a particular interface :

H5: The perceived ease of use of a particular interface is lower for individuals who were initially constrained to using that interface than for those who were always free to choose which interface they used.

H6: The effect of initial freedom of choice on interface preference is mediated by the incumbent’s perceived ease of use.

H7: (edited to make increase the understanding)Assuming a new interface is up and choice is given to visitors: previous visitors who were constrained and have created a psychological reactance are mostly expected to change for the new interface, and should perceived the incumbent to be much more difficult to use. No such difference will be noticed among individuals who prefer the incumbent or where free of choice before.

 

To test these hypothesis they introduce and test a model that links the impact of being able to ether choose or not among different interfaces on the perceived ease of use and users’ interface preference.

 

The tests lead to a simple ascertainment which is that the psychological reactance is a strong part in the users’ browsing experience. 

 

It is quite paradoxical because if users are constrained they will be more likely to move on an alternative interface if this choice come up. But they will have more skills and find information quickly compared to users which can choose the interface they want. Moreover it is noticeable that unconstrained users can develop more general skills, allowing them to switch with use between interfaces.

 

There is many counterparts to the constrained interface, mostly this is about ease of use perception and lack of loyalty for the customers. But even if the psychological reactance is important, we can read that people could also stay even if they have the opportunity to move on because it would be too much of a burden to do so.

 

Restrictions and constrained applications or interface can lead to some market opportunities for the competitors. The authors smartly pick the Apple’s example with the emphasis of the well known sentence: "Think Different". They used idea of being free to choose an alternative solution to a product which can be overwhelming for the user in a long-term use.

 

The word of the end is that when users feel that their freedom of choice has been constrained, they tend to react negatively and become more likely to choose a competitor.