A structured demographic evaluation approach for interactive technologies based on the identification of high impact usability factors

Abstract

Websites are an important method of buying and selling products conveniently. Website design is very important in achieving business success by attracting more customers. A visually appealing site with trustworthy content, which is easy to navigate will produce a sense of trust with the least irritation. In this study, we examine the user preferences and emotions about web design attributes in an online shopping environment in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance. Uncertainty avoidance expresses community avoidance from unknown situations, ambiguity, and personal risk. The objective was to determine the relationship between web design attributes (i.e., content/information quality, interactivity, navigation, color, and typography) and individuals’ loyalty via trust and satisfaction, and between web design attributes and irritation. Another subsequent part of this study was to explore the impact of Font personality on task completion time. In order to test the proposed hypotheses, three empirical studies were conducted. Initially, a working e-commerce website prototype was designed to identify the implications of selected design attributes on loyalty via satisfaction and trust. A questionnaire was designed to collect data to corroborate the hypotheses, related to satisfaction, trust, and loyalty. The partial least squares method was used to analyze the collected data from the students who participated in the test n= 558. The results indicated that all of the web design attributes positively influence loyalty via trust and satisfaction for uncertainty avoidance cultures. The same website prototype was further used to explore the relationship between design attributes and users’ irritation. The data collected from participants (n= 515) via questionnaires were also analyzed using the partial least squares method. The results indicated that the adopted web design attributes had significant a negative relationship with irritation for uncertainty avoidance cultures. Subsequently, the impact of font personality (i.e., serif, sans-serif, mono-spaced, and script) on users’ preference, appeal, and ultimately on performance was determined. In order to examine this another working prototype was designed of an online shopping website. Initially, a subjective assessment was carried out with n= 445 participants. Results of this experiment demonstrated that the sans-serif typeface was the most preferred font type whereas serif was found to be the most appealing font personality, which led to a second experiment. In the second experiment n= 383 university students participated, and the results demonstrate that users had faster task completion time for the experimental prototype designed using a sans-serif typeface. Textual information designed using a sans-serif typeface proved to be more effective due to its appeal and the reading preferences of users. The findings from this research have significant implications for online retailers andwebsite designers in the design of attractive websites that develop positive customer attitudes and minimize feelings of irritation.