Exploring Users' Perceived Control over Technology

Abstract

Intelligent systems become more and more a part of our everyday lives and typically act autonomously. Design guidelines and constructs related to the control of traditional systems often do not apply to them. Still, perceived control over these systems is important to users and affect acceptance and intention to use them. This paper presents an explorative online study. Participants named systems over which they sense much or less control and described features and properties that lead to that perception or that affect their desire for control. We found that (1) perceived control is strongly influenced by not directly control-related design features such as effective or efficient use, (2) poor comprehensibility and malfunctioning are highly affecting users control feeling, (3) users value customizability and the possibility for personalization of systems, (4) people are highly aware of privacy control issues of modern online connected technology, and (5) smart systems face the same control-related challenges as non-smart systems, but suffer from still being new to the users. Our findings help to understand the complex phenomena of perceived control over system with different levels of intelligence and autonomy from the users’ perspective and give suggestions for the design of future systems.