Icon Types, Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations and Behavioral Intention of Use for Semi-literate Users

Different types of icons can trigger different amount of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to semi-literate users. The different motivational variables are also expected to have different amount of effect on the behavioral intention of the use of such users. Our study approaches these issues from two theoretical perspectives. Based on the theory of metaphor, we argue that an interface which comprises of metaphoric icons can benefit semi-literate users by significantly effecting users’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. From ‘Motivational’ theory perspective, our research attempts to determine the capacity of four extrinsic and intrinsic motivational variables in predicting the behavioral intention of using a new mobile application by semi-literate users. Our results confirm the superiority of metaphoric icon set over idiomatic icon set for both extrinsic and intrinsic motivational aspects. The most surprising outcome of our study is ‘enjoyment’ becoming the sole significant contributor of ‘behavioral intention of use’ for semiliterate users.