스마트폰 애플리케이션 콘텐츠 품질 특성과 신뢰, 플로우 및 사용자 만족에 관한 실증적 연구

Abstract

The growing penetration rate of smartphones and the change of mobile communication paradigm have shifted the focus of online marketing from the Web to mobile devices. A wide variety of applications are accessible to smartphone users through app stores, and the applications that aren't available in existing wired devices have accelerated rapid changes in human life. The purpose of this study was to examine smartphone application contents, while the scope of existing studies have confined to wireless Internet contents. The selected users of smartphone application contents were surveyed to grasp major characteristics of user-friendly smartphone app contents and the impact of the characteristics of the contents quality on user behaviors involving trust, flow, satisfaction and word of mouth in the smartphone application market. It's basically meant to find out the rationale of the influential relationship of the characteristics of app contents quality to trust, flow, satisfaction and word-of-mouth intention, and to present a research model for that. And an empirical study was implemented to make a comparative analysis of the general characteristics of smartphone application contents quality and the quality characteristics of 'facial recognition and physiognomy contents,' which were fortune-telling contents developed in this study. The validity, reliability and goodness of the research model presented in this study were analyzed by making a main study and a case study to verify 10 hypotheses and 25 subhypotheses. The findings of the study were as follows: According to the main study, trust was under the positive influence of professionalism, convenience, playfulness and originality among the quality characteristics of smartphone application contents. Timeliness, playfulness and originality had a positive impact on flow, and usefulness and relevance affected satisfaction in a positive manner. When the case study was conducted on the facial recognition and physiognomy contents, relevance, playfulness and originality exercised a significant influence on trust, and relevance affected flow in a significant manner. As for the influential relationships between trust and flow, between trust and satisfaction, between flow and satisfaction and between satisfaction and word-of-mouth intention, both of the studies found that those factors had a positive impact on each other. The findings of the study illustrated that the quality characteristics of smartphone contents exerted an influence on satisfaction and word-of-mouth intention through trust and flow. Both of the main and case studies found that playfulness and originality were the contents quality characteristics that had the largest impact on trust, flow and satisfaction, and those characteristics could be said to exercise a positive influence on flow, satisfaction and word-of-mouth intention as far as there is trust. The findings of the study suggest the followings: First, smartphone application users seek after amusement-related quality such as delight, interest and uniqueness rather than information supply. Second, differentiated, unique and intriguing contents like the fortune-telling contents had a positive impact on user satisfaction. Third, the use of smartphone applications is already being a way of life, in addition to the use of the telephone conversation function. App contents providers who develop and supply smartphone applications should try to keep track of the increasingly segmented needs and disposition of users to formulate successful strategies to offer quality service. And users should make efficient use of smartphone application contents with interest, which will serve to boost the smartphone application market.

Keywords: contents quality, information quality, app store, app contents, smartphone application.