사용자 만족과 감정적 애착의 이론적 통합 모형에 관한 실증적 연구

Recently, studies on user experience have become popular within the field of new product development, marketing, and information systems. Most of these studies on user experience hypothesize that user satisfaction is enhanced when users have good experience with a certain device or a system and that enhanced user satisfaction can explain and predict user loyalty effectively. However, since user experience is a broad concept which comprises both the cognitive and the affective elements, whether existing theoretical models of user satisfaction can accurately reflect user experience is questionable. Moreover, it is also not clear whether user satisfaction can effectively explain user loyalty. For example, user’s cognitive appraisal plays a major role in building up user satisfaction with the product; this means that user satisfaction model only focuses on the cognitive aspect of user experience. Thus, the existing theoretical models focusing on user satisfaction cannot reflect the emotional aspect of user experience. Moreover, user satisfaction can be developed even with only a short period of usage; therefore, user satisfaction cannot fully explain the whole aspect of user experience which is developed through the long-term interaction with the product. Moreover, since users who are only satisfied with the product can always move on when there is a better alternative, there is a limitation of maintaining and promoting user loyalty by merely enhancing user satisfaction. This study was conducted to overcome the limitations of such existing theoretical models of user satisfaction by including a new concept known as emotional attachment in order to complement theoretical and practical limitations of the current user satisfaction model. Emotional attachment is an emotional bond between a person and the specific object; this research hypothesizes that the concept of emotional attachment could overcome the limitations of the theoretical model focusing on user satisfaction. Such hypothesis is based on the research results which argue that emotional attachment is formed based on the affective experience through the long-term interaction with a certain object and that the person with emotional attachment toward the object is less likely to be influenced by the existence of more attractive alternatives. In this study, a new theoretical model of emotional attachment based on the perspective of user experience was developed through literature review and was theoretically expanded the user experience model by integrating the emotional attachment and the user satisfaction model. Survey studies have been conducted to empirically validate the theoretically integrated model with users of four digital products (cell phone, MP3 player, TV, and refrigerator). The survey results indicate that our integrated model does indeed explain the relationship between user experience and user loyalty more faithfully than the existing models. This paper ends with certain limitations as well as implications of the study results.