What factors satisfy e-book store customers? Development of a model to evaluate e-book user behavior and satisfaction

Although the use of e-book readers has become increasingly widespread, there are few studies to evaluate e-book user behavior and satisfaction with commercial e-book stores, and even fewer approaches from the perspective of task-technology fit (TTF). In order to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to adopt the TTF theory to explore the factors that affect the behavior satisfaction of users of commercial e-book stores.

A survey was conducted to collect data from 183 e-book users. Data were collected from an online survey. The results were analyzed via the structural equation model.

The results show that functional service, mobility, convenience, and searching task are the important factors that influence users’ TTF behavior. Moreover, TTF may improve user satisfaction, flow, and scanpath. Finally, satisfaction was affected by TTF, scanpath, and flow factors. An analysis of the research explained 46 percent of the variance for the users’ TTF, and 59 percent of the variance for satisfaction of using the e-book store.

The research model modifies utility and performance from TTF theory in order to focus on individual flow, scanpath, and user satisfaction measurement because general e-book store users are not typically concerned about work performance issues for their leisure activities. These results provide a new perspective to e-book researchers and can help e-book store managers and designers in making policies and designing platforms.