The motivational and control structure underlying the acceptance of adaptive museum guides – An empirical study

Acceptance of adaptive museum guides raises important issues stemming from both the nature of the scenario (museum visit) and the very kind of technological approach adopted (adaptivity). As to the former, museum guides play a utilitarian role in a hedonic scenario; at present, however, it is not clear how this reflects on the balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for guide acceptance. The adaptive nature of the guide, in turn, raises questions about the impact of the opaqueness of the system behavior, of the alleged loss of perceived control over the interaction, and the role of presentation personalization. All these issues are explored in this paper by means of a model derived from TAM and comprising both extrinsic and intrinsic motivational constructs. The results of a analysis of data from 115 subjects show that the motivational structure of the guide usage is mainly utilitarian, with intrinsic motivations playing a role insofar as they acquire an instrumental value. The impact of the control issues on acceptability is low and indirect, while the importance of the feedback provided by the system is confirmed. Finally, personalization positively impacts on user engagement, this way strengthening the empirical and theoretical groundings for work in adaptive systems.