Beyond the System: How a Summative and Abstract Attitude Manifests, Affects and is Affected by Human Technology Interaction

As innovations emerge in complexity affecting our daily lives, evaluative frameworks addressing human-computer interaction should extend beyond assessments of system design toward broader considerations of influence, implementation, and effects of technology. In the evaluation of human technology interaction, this generates complex patterns interwoven with the use of complex technologies, such as their increasing autonomy, or their impact on societal interactions and human behavior. Grounded in basic cognitive psychological models, this dissertation examines the strengthened role of attitudes beyond the design of a system. It introduces Usage Perception as a summative attitudinal construct capturing users' abstract evaluations of technology usage and impact, to open new perspectives on how attitudes affect interactions, explain patterns, and bridge current research challenges in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with complex technologies.