April 7-9, 2022 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Abstract: Exploring the Power of Interactivity: Effects of Interactive COVID-19 Maps on Users’ Perceptions, Knowledge, and Behaviors
Interactive features have been widely adopted by digital content creators to distribute complex information in a simple, interesting, and effective way. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, health organizations, and news agencies created interactive COVID-19 maps in response to the ongoing changes associated with uncertain risks. However, not everyone prefers the interactive feature. Users might find themselves disoriented when navigating through the platform with high levels of interactivity, resulting in low acceptance of technology and misinterpretation of the information it provides. The aims of this study were to use the technology acceptance model to examine how users’ perceptions of ease of use and usefulness of interactive COVID-19 maps affect their health behavioral changes, knowledge about the COVID-19 disease, and intentions of information sharing. The widely distributed COVID-19 map designed by John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center was used as a direct stimulus in the experiment. A within-subjects experiment of 118 online users found strong support for the model. The results found that perceived ease of use and usefulness were strong predictors for the map users’ intentions of following health behaviors and sharing the given information. On the other hand, users’ positive perceptions of COVID-19 maps were significantly correlated to their attitude toward the pandemic. The results of this study imply the effectiveness of adopting interactive features to promote health-related messages. More implications of these findings for strategic communication in the field of health communication are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided.