The effect of information quality on user loyalty towards smartphone applications

Abstract

Today’s smartphone applications are well equipped with a number of technological innovations and advanced functionalities. At the same time, they have become more complicated in general due to a wide variety of functions. Some are neither easy to use, nor to understand. Even worse, most smartphones have a small display screen that may have a negative impact not only on the quality of information that smartphone applications offer, but also on the perceived usability of the applications. A review of the relevant literature found that past studies have not shown much interest in the impact of the quality of information that smartphone applications provide on the usability of the applications and user loyalty towards the applications. In addition, little research of the relationship between the usability of smartphone applications and user loyalty towards the applications was conducted. Therefore, this study aims to examine: 1) the effects of the quality of information that smartphone applications provide on both the perceived usability of the applications as well as user loyalty towards the applications, 2) the effect of the perceived usability of smartphone applications on user loyalty towards the applications. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze data collected through a survey. The results found that information quality significantly influenced the perceived usability of applications as well as user loyalty towards the applications. In addition, the perceived usability of applications also had a positive impact on user loyalty towards the applications.