9.7: Information-Systems Users – Types of Users

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Ly-Huong T. Pham, Tejal Desai-Naik, Laurie Hammond, & Wael Abdeljabbar
ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)

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Information-Systems Users – Types of Users

Besides the people who work to create, administer, and manage information systems, one more significant group of people: the users of information systems. This group represents a considerable percentage of the people involved. If the user cannot successfully learn and use an information system, the system is doomed to failure.

One tool used to understand how users will adopt a new technology comes from a 1962 study by Everett Rogers. In his book, Diffusion of Innovation, 1 Rogers explains how new ideas and technology spread via communication channels over time. Innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea or technology. Thus, the diffusion process consists of successive groups of consumers adopting new technology( shown in blue in the graph below); the adoption rate will start slowly and then dramatically increase once adoption reaches a certain point - its market share(yellow curve) reaches saturation level and becomes self-sustaining.

The diffusion of innovations according to Rogers. With successive groups of consumers adopting the new technology (shown in blue), its market share (yellow) will eventually reach the saturation level. The blue curve is broken into sections of adopters

Figure 9.4: Technology adoption user types
Image by Rogers Everett, licensed under Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Rogers identified five (sections of the blue curve) specific types of technology adopters:

Innovators: Innovators are the first individuals to adopt new technology. Innovators are willing to take risks, are the youngest in age, have the highest social class, have great financial liquidity, are very social, and have the closest contact with scientific sources and interaction with other innovators. Risk tolerance has them adopting technologies that may ultimately fail. Financial resources help absorb these failures (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 282).
Early adopters: The early adopters adopt an innovation after a technology has been introduced and proven. These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories, which means that they can influence the largest majority's opinions. They are typically younger in age, have higher social status, more financial liquidity, more advanced education, and are more socially aware than later adopters. These people are more discrete in adoption choices than innovators and realize the judicious choice of adoption will help them maintain a central communication position (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 283).
Early majority: Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. This group tends to be slower in the adoption process, has above average social status, has contact with early adopters, and seldom holds opinion leadership positions in a system (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 283).
Late majority: The late majority will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society. These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of skepticism, have below-average social status, very little financial liquidity, contact others in the late majority and the early majority, and show very little opinion leadership.
Laggards: Individuals in this category are the last to adopt an innovation. Unlike those in the previous categories, individuals in this category show no opinion leadership. These individuals typically have an aversion to change agents and tend to be advanced in age. Laggards typically tend to be focused on “traditions,” are likely to have the lowest social status and the lowest financial liquidity, be the oldest of all other adopters, and be only in contact with family and close friends.

Knowledge of the diffusion theory and the five types of technology users help provide additional insight into how to implement new information systems within an organization. For example, when rolling out a new system, IT may want to identify the innovators and early adopters within the organization and work with them first, then leverage their adoption to drive the implementation.

This process of diffusion of new ideas and technology can usually take months or years. But there are exceptions: the use of the internet in the 1990s and mobile devices in recent years to communicate, interact socially, access news and entertainment have spread more rapidly than possibly any other innovation in humankind's history.

References

Rogers, E. M. (1962). Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press