Factors Influencing the Usage of Websites: The Case of a Generic Portal in the Netherlands

In this paper, we empirically investigate an extension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM, Davis, 1989) to explain the individual acceptance and usage of websites. Conceptually, we examine perceived ease-of-use, usefulness, enjoyment, and their impact on attitude towards using, intention to use and actual use. The paper also introduces a new construct, “perceived visual attractiveness” of the website and suggest that it influences usefulness, enjoyment, and ease-of-use. For our empirical research we partnered with a Dutch generic portal site with over 300 000 subscribers at the time the research was conducted. The websurvey resulted in sample size of 825 respondents. The results confirmed all of the 12 hypotheses formulated. Three findings are worth mentioning in particular: (1) intention is most dominantly influenced by attitude (β = 0.51), (2) ease-of-use, enjoyment, and usefulness contribute equally to attitude towards using (β = 0.23, 0.23, and 0.17 respectively) and (3) visual attractiveness contributes remarkably well to both ease-of-use, enjoyment, and usefulness (β = 0.41, 0.35, and 0.21). Although this is not the first research to apply TAM to an internet context, we claim three major contributions: (1) a single website as the unit of analysis, (2) the introduction of visual attractiveness, and (3) the use of “real” website visitors rather than student samples. Promising future research lies in the conceptual connection between actual website features and website use, a connection for which the TAM framework provides a meaningful bridge. Factors Influencing the Usage of Websites: The Case of a Generic Portal in the Netherlands