스마트폰 사용자의 인지적 기능이 애플리케이션 충성도에 미치는 영향

Since the iPhone debuted in 2007, the worldwide smartphone market has grown exponentially. At the same time, the use of smartphone applications has also skyrocketed. Smartphone applications are used for a variety of purposes in users’ daily lives, such as text messaging, SNS, games, banking, shopping, and so on. Recently, more advanced features and functions have been added to applications, which make their structure and user interfaces more sophisticated. The more they become complex, the more difficult they are to understand and use for users. Consequently, today’s smartphone users are asked to use their cognitive functions intensively. However, there has been little research on the effects of the congnitive functions of smartphone users on their loyalty to applications. Therefore, this research aims to 1) measure smartpnone users’ cognitive functions by the mental models they hold, and 2) examine the relationships between the mental models of users and their loyalty to applications through the mediating variables including perceived ease of use, the expansion of mental model, and user satisfaction. A survey was conducted and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data. The results found that the mental models of users affected their loyalty to applications through the mediating variables including perceived ease of use and satisfaction. The results also showed that perceived ease of use influenced the expansion of mental models. However, there was no significant relationship between the expansion of mental models and perceived ease of use. This study contributed to IS studies by exploring the effects of the cognitive functions of smartphone users through their mental models. In addition, this study can help developers to make truly user-centric applications by incorporating the mental models that users hod into applications’ user interface designs.