Who are the best contributors? Designing a multimodal science communication interface based on the ECM, TAM and the Taguchi methods

Science communication conducted through mobile devices and mobile applications is an efficient and widespread phenomenon that requires communicators and design practitioners to further develop suitable design elements and strategies for such platforms. The effective application of multimodal or multisensory design in interfaces provides users with rich experiences. However, there is a lack of guiding recommendations for user interface design in the citizen science community. This study investigated factors affecting users’ perceptions and behavioral intentions toward multimodal scientific communication interface designs and identified the optimal combinations of such factors for such designs. Through a focus group, we defined three design dimensions of a science communication interface: visual, auditory, and haptic. An online experiment involving 916 participants was then conducted and integrated the technology acceptance model, expectation–confirmation model, and Taguchi method to examine the hierarchical combinations with the greatest influence in each dimension. The results indicated that interface design combinations primarily focusing on visual elements, with auditory and haptic as secondary elements, can serve as effective tools for science communication. Moreover, layout, color tones, vibration intensity, and sound volume significantly affected users’ perceptions and behavioral intentions. As one of the few studies using the Taguchi method to explore the design of science communication interfaces, the present findings enrich the multimodal theory from the perspectives of design and communication, highlighting its value in science communication. This paper simultaneously provides insights into how to select and combine multimodal design elements in science communication interfaces, demonstrating the potential of such designs to affect a user perception, satisfaction, confirmation, and continued usage intention.