Testing the perceived ease of use in social media: Acceptance testing for people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities

Abstract

In the last few years, social media spread around the globe. Being a substantial and integral part in today's everyday life of many people, especially online social networks (OSNs) changed communication behavior fundamentally. Unfortunately, not everybody is integrated in this "new everyday life" yet. In our research, we focus on this important issue of e-inclusion and participation of people with intellectual disabilities in social media. In the context of this paper, we will present a methodology on how to evaluate the perceived ease of use of social media applications by people with intellectual disability. Moreover, we will pre-validate this methodology by applying it in a test setting with a customized barrier-free OSN, developed in our research group. This is the first step for developing a target group specific acceptance model, based on the technology acceptance model. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.