What Drives Users to Adopt a Digital Museum? A Case of Virtual Exhibition Hall of National Costume Museum

Abstract

The onset of technological innovations (mobile and handhelds, virtual reality, multi-touch screens, and interactive 3D) have provided creative ideas and perspectives for online communication, dissemination, and protection of cultural heritage for costume museums. Digital costume museums (DCM) digitized clothing collections for the Internet, conducive to enhancing visitors’ understanding, enjoyment, and positive attitudes and stimulating further learning, experience, and exploration. However, little attention has been paid to the influence and effects of these technologies on visitors’ experience toward digital costume museums. Improving users’ behavior intention and expanding the influence of digital costume museums are issues that need further discussion. In this study, we expand the technology acceptance model (TAM) by adding information quality and information richness as the system characteristics, constructing the research model, and 11 hypotheses of users’ behavior intention toward digital costume museums. Analysis of data collected from 265 costume-related respondents reveal that information quality (IQ) positively influences perceived convenience (PC) and perceived ease of use (PEOU), while information richness (IR) has a positive impact on perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived playfulness (PP). The finding also reveals that perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived playfulness (PP) are significant predictors of users’ behavior intention (BI) toward using digital costume museums. The research conclusion enriches academic theories and brings practical inspiration for managers, curators, and practitioners to construct and innovate digital costume museums.