The impact of consumer involvement on satisfaction with and use of assistive technology

Purpose. This exploratory study examined the relationships between consumers' involvement in the pre-purchase decisionmaking process, their perceptions of feeling informed, and their degree of being satisfied with and use of assistive technology (AT). Does consumer information and participation in decision-making process lead to improved satisfaction and use of AT? Method. A link to an project-specific web-based survey, sent to several online disability forums and independent living centres, resulted in a sample of 145 individuals with a range of disabilities, who used a range of AT and were geographically dispersed. Results. There is a significant relationship between being feeling informed and being satisfied with an AT device (F(13,278)= 27.79, p = 0.000). Feeling that personal needs were not assessed led to lower satisfaction (beta = -0.15, p < 0.07), while feeling informed resulted from a number of different factors. Lack of consumer involvement in the prepurchase decision-making process led to somewhat greater rates of abandonment in some categories of AT (some with small n's). Conclusions. Talking with other users, auditioning the device and searching the Internet are important ways for consumers to gather information. When consumers feel informed, they are more likely to be satisfied with the AT and retain it.