Within society Information Technology (IT) is becoming pervasive. This is no more
pronounced than in Higher Education where IT is almost ubiquitously used. Current
developments have also seen Web 2.0 tools such as wikis being used in pedagogical
contexts. Research in computer anxiety has identified that quality of initial
experience may be important in the onset of anxiety towards IT. However the
concept of computer anxiety is too vague to reflect likely reactions to specific IT
scenarios especially in interactions with social technology such as wikis. Although
wikis are growing in popularity little is known about users‟ emotional reaction
towards contributing to them, how their experiences shape these emotions as well as
the users‟ view of usability above that mentioned in qualitative research. Due to the
interface, social and flexible nature of wikis users may be anxious towards editing.
This research aims to offer causal insight into the influence of wiki site design
characteristics on anxiety towards wiki editing and users usability evaluation of wiki
editing experiences. Three experiment-based studies are presented addressing the
effects of site characteristics such as in-built training spaces (i.e. tutorials and
sandboxes commonly used on wikis), user editing identity as well as aspects inherent
to wiki sites such as content flexibility, on anxiety felt by users in editing scenarios
and users usability rating of their editing experiences. The research also aimed to
identify whether initial experiences affected anxiety about further editing, as
suggested by computer anxiety research, or whether emotions are only affected
during editing experience. The findings of the initial study on in-built training spaces
suggest that the concept of wiki anxiety measured in this research more accurately
reflects anxiety experienced during interaction than computer anxiety. Additionally
the in-built training spaces using tutorials were seen to lead to better first experiences
for novice users in using the wiki markup interface than those without (such as when
experiencing sandbox training spaces and no training). Similarly the presence of a
tutorial reduced wiki anxiety during interaction but did not affect anxiety towards
future editing. From these findings the work advanced to study the effect of identity
salience on wiki anxiety during editing and wiki usability focusing on contributing
content using a user group with experience editing wikis. This was so as to explore
the effect of wiki characteristics on user experience variables above that from first
exposure anxiety likely in novice users. The research found that participants were
less anxious when editing the wiki anonymously than when editing using a
pseudonym and full name identity. There was however no effect of identity salience
on usability rating. Additionally the type of edit conducted by participants, in terms
of addition or deletion and replacement of content, did not have a significant effect
on either anxiety during editing or usability evaluation. Further research exploring
the effect of flexibility and other user behaviour on user anxiety and usability
evaluation when contributing subsequently found that there was no significant effect
of flexibility on the wiki user experience variables. The work demonstrates
successful empirical evaluation of the wiki user editing experience can be achieved
and can lead to important causal insight into the effects of wiki site design on the
users‟ experience. It also identifies aspects of the site that can lead to the reduction of
anxiety towards editing during interaction and influence usability rating towards the
system