How Experience and Expertise Affect the Use of a Complex Technology

Abstract

As end-users work with increasingly complex technologies, it is important that these technologies be used to the fullest extent possible. Time is needed to learn how to use these new technologies and fit them to user tasks, but the fact that a user has gained experience does not mean that expertise has also been gained. Using survey data collected from 187 data warehouse end-users, we found that experience and expertise have a significant positive correlation (r = 0.35, p < 0.001), but expertise has a significantly greater effect on ease-of-use perceptions (t=10.2, p < 0.0001) and the use of a technology (t=21.08, p < 0.0001) than experience. Therefore, it is critical that researchers properly delineate which construct – end-user expertise or experience – is being assessed, when measuring the effect that individual differences have on the perceptions and use of technology.