AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY OF PERCEIVED USEFULNESS AND PERCEIVED EASE OF USE ON COMPUTERIZED SUPPORT SYSTEM USE OVER TIME

Interactive computerized support systems (CSS) providing confidential, convenient and logical aids might be useful for crisis people (eg AIDS/HIV +) who are isolated from services for geographic, economic, emotional or social reasons. Such interactive systems are usually designed for voluntary use, and the individual's perceptions (beliefs) of the system usefulness and ease of use are crucial to the success of the systems. This paper first introduces a medical CSS for AIDS/HIV+ consisting of communication, model and database services, and then an empirical study on the relationships between individual perceptions and voluntary computer use over time is discussed. Results of this study indicate that communication functions of CSS are the most popular services, but the decision models receive least attentions. Partial correlation analysis suggests that perceived ease of use after the exploring stage may be an intervening variable between exploring stage use and perceived usefulness. Then, the perceived usefulness influences the stable stage use frequency in parallel with perceived ease of use.