Social viewing behavior in social TV: proposing a new concept of socio-usability
| Date | 08 June 2015 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-12-2014-0299 |
| Pages | 416-434 |
| Published date | 08 June 2015 |
| Author | Dong-Hee Shin,Janghyun Kim |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval |
Social viewing behavior in social
TV: proposing a new concept
of socio-usability
Dong-Hee Shin and Janghyun Kim
Department of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University,
Seoul, Republic of Korea
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how usability and sociability differ in
the way they influence users’experiences using social TV (STV).
Design/methodology/approach –The research model is theoretically proposed and empirically
tested through a survey of STV users in South Korea. The model was analysed using structural
equation modelling, and the results were input to a neural network model to predict adoption.
Findings –Users differ in their emphasis on the identified dimensions when they view STV and
socialise through it. Furthermore, the findings show the mediating and moderating roles of perceived
sociability on the effect of performance on intention. That is, with sociability, users perceive higher
utilitarian value and enjoyable hedonic value and thus are more likely to intend to use STV.
Research limitations/implications –The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of
building a theory of sociability and providing practical insights into developing a meaningful sociable
TV experiences.
Originality/value –As multidimension al constructs, users’perceptions of socia bility and
usability are determined by multiple heterogeneous factors, such as utility and social interaction.
This study highlights these two aspects in terms of the rising use of STV.
Keywords Sociability, Social TV, Social viewing, Socio-usability
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Social TV (STV) is developing rapidly around the world. The fast growth of high-speed
broadband connections is enabling the creation of a smarter TV experienc e that
delivers content directly to consumer devices in the living room. STV is one of several
interesting new areas that have emerged with smart TV. It can integrate voice
communication, text chat, presence and context awareness, TV recommendations,
ratings and video-conferencing with the TV content either directly on screen or by
using ancillary devices. Social features enhance the viewing experience by helping
the viewers to find relevant content and to socialise with people while watching TV.
People communicate with friends in real time and asynchronously. The social elements
become a part of the content, appearing inside video players, in apps, or on second
screens such as tablets or smart phones.
The era of STV is coming at a rapid pace, following the success of smart TV. Along
with smart TV, it is predicted that STV will soon be at the heart of social media services
and applications. However, with all the hype over STV, the question arises as to
whether marketers know how consumers truly feel about it, and its presence in the
typical household is probably years away. One factor that slows down the adoption of
STV is the limited social interaction (Shin, 2013). Because of the primitive and limited
user experience, user satisfaction seems to be low. Consumers might remember the ups
and downs of similar technologies that ended up as total failures, such as Web TV,
Online Information Review
Vol. 39 No. 3, 2015
pp. 416-434
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-12-2014-0299
Received 20 November 2014
Second revision approved
18 March 2015
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
416
OIR
39,3
TiVo and television-commerce (Bae and Chang, 2012). While there is widespread
enthusiasm for STV, sceptics consider it to be a gimmick or, at best, an immature
technology.
In light of these perceptions, two related but rather conflicting factors seem to be
important for the successful rollout of STV: usability and sociability (Lazar and Preece,
2002; Shin, 2013). As for any other recent technologies –such as internet TV, 3DTV,
smart TV and curved TV –usability is undoubtedly the most important factor in
successful rollout. However, these previous technologies have not been very successful
in terms of user experience (Shin, 2014). Thus researchers began to seek other specific
factors beyond usability, such as presence (3DTV), interactivity (smart TV) and
immersion (curved TV). Numerous studies have been conducted to clarify how these
new factors are balanced or optimised with the traditional factor of usability (e.g.
Theng et al., 2010).
Usability is mainly concerned with how people use STV as a utility TV. By sharin g
content, creating and sending messages and communicating with others, users
experience sociability in STV. Although both sociability and usability are needed
for the success of STV as a social platform and a TV utility, a key challenge for
the STV industry is to facilitate social interaction and engage users in a mediated
environment. STV is perceived not only as a TV device for entertainment, but also as a
multitasking social platform that enables users to perform educational, informational
and commercial tasks.
Despite their increasing importance, these issues have been addressed in only a few
industry reports. Although sociability is considered important for the success of social
media (Phang et al., 2009), it is still uncertain how the sociability value will play out in
the diffusion of STV. Sociability issues become particularly important when they are
juxtaposed with usability. STV, as an extension of traditional TV, offers content and
programmes; thus users are concerned with how useful and how easy to use STV is as
a utility. At the same time users utilise STV to communicate with other users, to
interact in communities and to socialise in the web of social networks. Thus users are
concerned with how sociable STV is and how effective it is as a social platform. It is not
currently known what importance users ascribe to these dimensions when watching
and socialising in STV. Therefore this study examines consumers’experiences and
evaluations of STV through a proposed research model that links sociability and
usability to hedonic and utilitarian performance. The following research questions
guide this study:
RQ1. Do users value usability and sociability dimensions differently when
considering, adopting or using STV?
RQ2. How does the interaction of usability and sociability affect the usage of STV?
RQ3. What does the STV experience mean to users, especially with respect to social
viewing?
The findings should be of interest to both academics and the industry. From a
theoretical perspective this study develops a model to identify the antecedents of user
intention to accept STV. The new model builds on previous technology acceptance
research, adding the integration of usability and sociability, and examines how the two
dimensions affect attitudes and intention. Although existing studies on usability and
sociability have primarily relied on ethnographic or case study methods (e.g. Maloney-
Krichmar and Preece, 2005), this study extends previous knowledge by quantitatively
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viewing
behavior
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