One app to trace them all? Examining app specifications for mass acceptance of contact-tracing apps

Abstract

The current COVID-19 crisis has seen governments worldwide mobilising to develop and implement contact-tracing apps as an integral part of their lockdown exit strategies. The challenge facing policy makers is that tracing can only be effective if the majority of the population uses the one app developed; its specifications must therefore be carefully considered. We theorise on tracing apps and mass acceptance and conduct a full-factorial experiment to investigate how app installation intention is influenced by different app specifications based on three benefit appeals, two privacy designs, and two convenience designs. By applying quantile regression, we not only estimate the general effect of these app specifications but also uncover how their influence differs among citizens with different propensities for acceptance (i.e. critics, undecided, advocates)-a crucial insight for succeeding with mass acceptance. This study contributes to research in three ways: we theorise how mass acceptance differs from established app acceptance, we provide a fine-grained approach to investigating the app specifications salient for mass acceptance, and we reveal contextualised insights specific to tracing apps with multi-layered benefit structures. Our findings can guide policy makers by providing specification recommendations for facilitating mass acceptance of tracing apps during pandemics or other societal crises.

Digital contact-tracing adoption in the COVID-19 pandemic: IT governance for collective action at the societal level

“…While early research indicates the efficacy of the approach (Urbaczewski & Lee, 2020), proximity tracing will only be effective and achieve its intended health, economic and societal benefits if a significant user base adopts and uses the service (Ferretti et al, 2020). Hence, in addition to design considerations (Trang et al, 2020), appropriate governance approaches are required to ensure rapid, populationwide adoption of digital proximity tracing. We thus ask: How can the rapid, population-wide adoption of proximity tracing using digital devices for curbing pandemic spreads be governed?…”

Containing COVID-19 through physical distancing: the impact of real-time crowding information

“…As such, we add to the emerging body of initiatives on IS in the age of pandemics (e.g. Laato et al, 2020;Naidoo, 2020;Trang et al, 2020) and answer the call of Ågerfalk et al (2020) for IS studies to generate urgently required impetus that can immediately support practitioners in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Our contributions are summarised in Table 2.…”

“…Substantial resources are directed towards IS increasing the transparency of infection risk, for example, by promoting disease status dashboards (Pietz et al, 2020) and by optimising communication strategies to increase user adoption of tracing apps (Trang et al, 2020).…”

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, health anxiety has emerged as a critical factor influencing user attitudes and behaviour, for example, with respect to spreading information online (Laato et al, 2020) and accepting tracing apps (Trang et al, 2020).…”

Factors Influencing Tourists’ Intention to Use COVID-19 Contact Tracing App

“…While there are many variants in the implementation of the CTAs across different countries, some countries have witnessed stiff resistance to their use due to many unresolved questions bothering on trust, users' privacy and their actual benefits [6].…”