Revisiting User Engagement: Concepts, Themes, and Opportunities

Given the proliferation of information technology (IT), the growing research interest across diverse disciplines in user engagement with IT is unsurprising. However, defining, designing for, and evaluating user engagement remain complex issues within the information systems community, prompting researchers to call for a systematic understanding of these areas. To bridge this gap, this review presents an analysis of the main themes of 59 empirical studies focusing on the conceptualization, operationalization, antecedents, consequences, and forms of user engagement. Based on the findings of this review, opportunities for future research that address study settings, emerging technologies, the factor structure and forms of user engagement, as well as user engagement frameworks, are presented. As technological advances continue to shape how users engage with IT, the concept of user engagement should be refined and elaborated on according to the research context.