Apps with Benefits: Using Benefits and Burdens to Predict Mobile App Usage.

How do mobile apps keep users coming back? Suh et al. proposed that the level of burden placed on a user has a negative effect on user retention. They developed the User Burden Scale, and showed that computing systems still in use had lower burdens than those that were abandoned. What is not captured is how the added benefits a system provides increases user retention. We hypothesize that both benefits and burdens of a mobile app predict usage. To show this, we design and validate a User Benefit Scale to complement the User Burden Scale, for the evaluation of benefits of mobile apps. Our scale consists of four constructs: if an app is 1) useful and informational, 2) enjoyable and enables pursuit of interests, 3) enables social interaction, and 4) has good usability and visual/ interaction design. We administered the benefit and burden scales to 347 participants. Our results suggest that benefit is more predictive of mobile app usage than burden, and our model of app usage includes constructs from both the benefit and burden scales.