Trust and distrust on the web: User experiences and website characteristics

The aim of this research is to study the content of trustful and distrustful user experiences on the web to identify website characteristics that enhance trust or cause distrust. We collected users’ reports about critical incidents and quantitative questionnaire data by means of an online survey. Results from N = 221 participants suggest that distrust is mostly an effect of graphical (e.g., complex layout) and structural (e.g., pop-ups) design issues of a website, whereas trust is based on social factors such as reviews or recommendations by friends. The content of a website affects both trust and distrust: privacy issues had an effect on distrust and security signs enhanced trust. Furthermore, we show how trustful and distrustful user experiences differ in terms of perceived honesty, competence, and benevolence. High honesty and competence characterize a trustful experience, whereas a distrustful experience is associated with missing honesty and missing benevolence. We discuss how different website characteristics help to enhance trust or to prevent distrust and how this impacts the allocation of design resources.     

Web Acceptance Model (WAM): Moderating effects of user experience

Our study empirically examined how Davis's Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) helped managers predict a user's intention to revisit a website and how this changed over time as a user gained experience of the Internet and the website. The user's experience of the website played a moderating role. For less experienced users, perceived ease of use was found to be a more important factor in deciding to revisit the website, whereas perceived usefulness had more effect on more experienced users. Thus, web designers can identify and remove web factors that hinder user acceptance and address underlying obstacles to post-adoption usage.     

Website design: place for luxury brands in cyberspace?

A great challenge for luxury marketers is how to harness Internet’s incredible influence on customers while still maintaining and adhering to the customer-based brand equity (CBE) of luxury brands. This study aims to investigate the effect of website design on the CBE of luxury brands. Integrating the research on aesthetic design and luxury branding, we develop and empirically validate a research model, specifying that two aesthetic design dimensions (aesthetic formality and aesthetic appeal) can stimulate a strong sense of luxury, which in turn leads to a positive evaluation of CBE. Furthermore, the effect of aesthetic design on the sense of luxury is contingent upon brand familiarity prior to the exposure of a luxury brand website. The research model is validated with a survey study involving 201 participants. The paper includes implications for website design to deliver online brand experience and develop CBE with specific online consumer groups. As an early attempt to examine the website design effect on online branding experience and brand equity, this study contributes to both literature of website aesthetics and online luxury branding.     

Action and reason in the theory of Āyurveda

The paper explores the relation between reason and action as it emerges from the texts of āyurveda. Life or Ayus (commonly understood as life-span) is primary subject matter of Ayurveda. Life is a locus of experience, action and disposition. Experiences and actions are differentially determined by dispositions that characterize the organism; otherwise all living organisms will be identical. Ayus of each living being is uniquely individual and remains constant between birth and death. In this journey, upkeep of ayus is the purpose of āyurveda or science of life. Ayurveda is a science of experienced matter as well as of experienced body. The living body is critically dependent on the influx of matter for its upkeep. āyurveda offers a conceptual system to reason about balance and imbalances of the system and the causal role of the material flux through the system. This sensate matter is causally open and makes room for definite causal role for the individual and the effective insertion of the felt-purpose of action. Some of the strengths of Ayurveda are brought forth in the paper such as (a) reasoning out the compatibility between the bodily processes and the selection of the natural products for diet and drug, (b) role for heuristics in medical diagnosis, which takes into cognizance the particularity of each living body and the teleology evident in the very act of diagnostic reasoning. The paper shows that āyurvedic theory is built on experiential datum whereas scientific medical theory is built on experience-independent datum. āyurveda explores causal efficacy of ‘secondary qualities’ whereas scientific medicine explores causal efficacy of ‘primary qualities’. The actionable experiential reasoning is at the foundations of āyurveda whereas modern medical science is ab initio saddled with difficult ‘hiatus theoreticus’ between theory and practice. For Ayurveda it is experience of qualities that discloses behavior of matter. The types of qualities that appear in experience have a special significance for theorizing about the actions of matter with the help of qualities. The paper explores the relation between experience of qualities and the method of science. It shows how efficacy of medical practice is based on the foundational stance of experiential realism in theory. To bring the point home, the paper borrows Aristotalian concepts to show how the relation between phantasm and phronesis is honored in the very theory of āyurveda.     

Exploring the cognitive and affective bases of online purchase intentions: a hierarchical test across product types

Whereas there is ample e-commerce research on how online store beliefs and consumer online affective states may influence online purchase intentions, no research so far has examined whether the hierarchy of effects between these concepts differs across product types. In this study, we fill this research gap by examining the explanatory power of the think-feel-do hierarchy versus the feel-think-do hierarchy in predicting online purchase intentions towards search versus experience products and high involvement versus low involvement products. Hypotheses are formulated and tested using a quasi-field experiment (n = 198) design. The results show the robustness of the think-feel-do hierarchy for three out of four product types (experience, low involvement, high involvement). Remarkably, the results also demonstrate that the formation of online purchase intentions for search products may occur via a more experiential form of online purchase decision-making. Implications of our findings for theory and online store practitioners are discussed.     

WISDOM: A website design method based on reusing design and software solutions

ContextWebsites are increasingly important for advertising and announcing information and they have become virtual business operations support tools. Thus, website designers have to take an increasing number of criteria (cost, delay, quality, security, maintenance) into account during design process to satisfy the needs.ObjectiveThe objective of this paper was to present our WISDOM method that: guides the designer through the website design process, proposes design solutions based on already existing solutions for online website design, facilitates the choice of software components to implement specific services, and speeds up website construction.MethodThe originality of our method is that it links the design process to formalized experience and a software component characterization that allows both functional and non-functional aspects to be considered.ResultsThis method relies on the state-of-the-art strengths in the website design process, modeling dimensions, Model-Driven Engineering and the patterns approach. We propose an implementation of our method as a dedicated website which helps website design and provides a website analysis catalog and a software component analysis catalog.ConclusionOur analysis of the method’s use highlights that formalizing the steps of the design process helps designers, especially novice designers, to design a website; our analysis of the tool’s use highlights its efficiency for rapid website development and its use of the “website family” concept. The results are so very encouraging for both method and tool; both facilitate website design by reusing existing solutions and components.     

Exploring the design criteria of website interfaces for gender

The interface is the major channel through which users to navigate a website to find information matching their needs; nevertheless, gender-specific preferences for websites interface design have not been sufficiently explored or evaluated based on comprehensive and systematic approaches in past research. This study investigated the website interface design criteria for users of different genders based on usability principles. Undergraduate and graduate students in Taiwan were selected as the target sample. A total of 236 valid questionnaires were analyzed. The results showed significant gender differences in scaling of the importance of website interface design criteria. The three most important website interface design criteria for males were compatibility, minimal action, and flexibility, whereas the three most important design criteria for females were compatibility, learnability, and user guidance. This paper discusses the possible explanations for the gender differences and their implications for website design.     

Understanding internet recruitment via signaling theory and the elaboration likelihood model

A detailed model specifying the linkages between Internet recruitment websites and organizational attraction was examined. Participants (N = 581) viewed Fortune 500 company websites and responded to questions about the content and design of these websites and their resulting attitudes, fit perceptions, and organizational attraction. Results showed that recruitment website content and design influence attitudes toward the recruitment websites, organizational attitudes, and subsequently organizational attraction. The moderating effects of person-organization (P-O) and person-job (P-J) fit were examined. Two sets of hypotheses based on signaling theory (  and ) and the elaboration likelihood model ( Petty & Cacioppo, 1981) were largely supported. Consistent with signaling theory, the amount of job and organizational information on a recruitment website interacted with website usability, such that when less job information was presented, website usability played a greater role in predicting favorable attitudes towards the organization. Consistent with the elaboration likelihood model, when P-J fit was high, website aesthetics were less important in predicting attitudes towards the organization.     

C2C网络购物平台的用户体验设计研究

C2C是基于互联网的一种重要网络购物模式,文章通过对C2C网络购物平台的深入研究,以用户体验设计研究为中心,从C2C网络购物平台的五个用户体验要素进行深入剖析,对C2C网络购物平台的用户体验设计做出整体系统的概念性分析。     

基于服务设计理念的B2C电子商务网站设计

在电子商务日益成熟的今天,互联网竞争尤为激烈,研究基于服务设计理念的B2C电子商务网站,在网站设计方面增强用户的吸引力,提升用户购物体验尤为重要。本文从服务设计理念中的服务接触点着手,以服务结合设计原则诠释B2C电子商务网站的设计,通过网站优化给予用户更为人性化的互联网购物体验,增强用户对B2C网站的认同感,提高B2C电子商务网站与用户之间的黏合度。     

Determinants of e-consumer productivity in product retrieval on a commercial website: An experimental approach

This article investigates what determines e-consumer productivity, in the specific case of product retrieval, on a commercial website. With a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design on 292 participants, an online experiment reveals that productivity in product retrieval (measured in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and time) relates to website design (e.g., abstraction level of labels, animation), user characteristics (e.g., Internet experience, product category familiarity, cognitive absorption), and situational characteristics (e.g., task nature). The results also confirm interactive effects among the type of strategy used, the nature of the task, and the website design. These findings have notable implications for both research and practice.     

Application of experiential locus of control to understand users' judgments toward useful experience

Recently, innovative products and services have been changing the way people live their lives. Human–computer interaction (HCI) plays an important role in the development and design of such products and services. However, prior studies did not fully explain how people evaluate their experience when they use a product and service. The research goal of this study is to propose a conceptual model that explains the judgment of experience quality and the judgment criteria. This study suggested two research questions: First, how can we understand users' judgment of good experience? We will suggest a theoretical model that is based on the concept of locus of control (LoC) for explaining users' evaluation of their experience, including the use result and the use process. Second, what are the representative system factors to affect users’ judgment? This study validates the representative system factors that affect the determinants through verifying the conceptual model. Through a pre-study, the representative system features affecting each determinant were derived and hypothesized for the main study. The results showed that experiential LoC was affected both internally and externally by the two determinants. In addition, each of the determinants was affected by the dimension or level of the system features.     

Program transformations for information personalization

Personalization constitutes the mechanisms necessary to automatically customize information content, structure, and presentation to the end-user to reduce information overload. Unlike traditional approaches to personalization, the central theme of our approach is to model a website as a program and conduct website transformation for personalization by program transformation (e.g., partial evaluation, program slicing). The goal of this paper is study personalization through a program transformation lens, and develop a formal model, based on program transformations, for personalized interaction with hierarchical hypermedia. The specific research issues addressed involve identifying and developing program representations and transformations suitable for classes of hierarchical hypermedia, and providing supplemental interactions for improving the personalized experience. The primary form of personalization discussed is out-of-turn interaction—a technique which empowers a user navigating a hierarchical website to postpone clicking on any of the hyperlinks presented on the current page and, instead, communicate the label of a hyperlink nested deeper in the hierarchy. When the user supplies out-of-turn input we personalize the hierarchy to reflect the user's informational need. While viewing a website as a program and site transformation as program transformation is non-traditional, it offers a new way of thinking about personalized interaction, especially with hierarchical hypermedia. Our use of program transformations casts personalization in a formal setting and provides a systematic and implementation-neutral approach to designing systems. Moreover, this approach helped connect our work to human-computer dialog management and, in particular, mixed-initiative interaction. Putting personalized web interaction on a fundamentally different landscape gave birth to this new line of research. Relating concepts in the web domain (e.g., sites, interactions) to notions in the program-theoretic domain (e.g., programs, transformations) constitutes the creativity in this work.     

Trust transference in brick and click retailers: An investigation of the before-online-visit phase

We examined the formation of online trust encountered by potential customers of a brick and click retailer before they visit its online website; this phase of the purchasing experience has been under-investigated in trust literature. Since a brick and click retailer is eager to attract offline customers to its website based on trust in the brick and mortar stores, our exploratory study investigated, (1) Can customers’ offline trust in a retailer affect their online trust (in the website operations of the retailer)?; (2) What other factors might be influential on online trust? A social relations and networks perspective was adopted to explain customers’ online trust formation during the before-online-visit phase. Findings from a sample of 246 offline customers who had never visited a supermarket's website revealed that word-of-mouth, offline trust, and expected sanctioning power were significant in forming online trust. Furthermore, findings showed that word-of-mouth was more influential than offline trust based on a customers’ personal experience with the supermarket's physical stores. This provided empirical evidence on how and why some pure online retailers outperformed brick and click retailers.     

高性能网站安全建设探讨

互联网的快速发展使得用户对网站安全性和并发访问的要求不断提升,并且一直以来是网站建设中很难解决的一类问题。结合其多年的建设经验,将高并发系统的安全建设归纳为硬件选择、系统部署、Web服务器、数据库等子类,并从每个方面进行详细的阐述,使得该类问题的分析和解决可以变得更加系统和科学。最后列举了两个网站安全建设的实例,并对每个案例的实现方案进行分析比较,为广大读者提供了参考。     

Re-thinking physics teaching with web-based learning

There is extensive uptake of ICT in the teaching of science but more evidence is needed on how ICT impacts on the learning practice and the learning outcomes at the classroom level. In this study, a physics website (Getsmart) was developed using the cognitive apprenticeship framework for students at a high school in Australia. This website was designed to enhance students’ knowledge of concepts in physics. Reflexive pedagogies were used in the delivery learning materials in a blended learning environment. The students in the treatment group accessed the website over a 10 week period. Pre and post-test results of the treatment (N = 48) and comparison group (N = 32) were compared. The MANCOVA analysis showed that the web-based learning experience benefitted the students in the treatment group. It not only impacted on the learning outcomes, but qualitative data from the students suggested that it had a positive impact on their attitudes towards studying physics in a blended environment.     

Understanding the role of an IT artifact in online service continuance: An extended perspective of user satisfaction

Given increasing investment in an IT (information technology) artifact (i.e., online service website), it is becoming important to retain existing customers. In order to help link website design and investment decisions to the strategy for retaining customers, we propose a model by extending the user satisfaction perspective into research on online service continuance. We empirically tested the model within the context of a social network service. The analysis results found that website information satisfaction and system satisfaction play key roles in forming continuance intention through perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. It is also noted that computer anxiety serves as an important moderator toward continuance intention. Theoretical and practical implications are offered for better understanding of the role of the IT artifact in online service post-adoption phenomena.     

Designing consumer interfaces for experiential tasks: an empirical investigation

In the early adoption phase of business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce, the tasks that proved most conducive to online consumer interaction typically were goal-directed, being clear in sequence and structure. A key challenge in ecommerce is the ability to design interfaces that support experiential tasks in addition to goal-directed tasks. Most of the ecommerce research on interface design, however, has focused on goal-directed tasks and has not addressed experiential tasks. Based on the literature from interface metaphors and mental models, this paper explores the use of tangible attributes derived from the physical business domain as a technique for designing an interface that effectively supports experiential tasks. A laboratory experiment was designed and conducted to test the impact of two types of interfaces and business domain familiarity when completing an experiential task. Because consumers need to retain and recall information to evaluate products/services or to make brand associations, retention/recall of information was measured on both the day of the treatment and after a 2-day lag. Results revealed that the interface based upon the business domain metaphor stimulated higher levels of retention and recall of information and thus provided the desired support for experiential tasks. Further, users with weaker domain familiarity showed the greatest improvement in retention and recall, particularly after a 2-day lag, when using the interface with the business domain metaphor design.     

The effect of visual design and placement of intra-article navigation schemes on reading comprehension and website user perceptions

Multipage articles on websites require intra-article navigation schemes and, when well designed, such navigational schemes signal the topical structure of the article’s contents. This study examines the effect of the visual design and placement of intra-article navigation schemes on website users’ reading comprehension and user experience. Using an informational medical website, four treatments of an intra-article navigation scheme were varied in their level of visual distinctness from the site’s other navigation devices and in their placement in the web page. Significant differences were found for reading comprehension and perceived knowledge gained. Reading comprehension was highest with an intra-article navigation scheme that was most visually distinct as an article table of contents and that replaced the site’s navigation on the web page layout. Paradoxically, participants’ perceptions of the amount of knowledge they gained were rated lowest for this condition. Suggestions for navigation design are presented.     

A macro model of online information quality perceptions: A review and synthesis of the literature

Online information quality (IQ) plays a critical role in influencing the quality of consumers' experience and decisions in the online environment. Much research has been conducted in the literature to understand the impact of consumers’ perceptions of online IQ on various factors that define the online user experience. This article reviews this existing research and provides a holistic view of this literature culminating in a macro model of online IQ that outlines the current status of research in this area and highlights under-researched areas worthy of future research. Through this comprehensive analysis of 452 articles, we draw several overarching contributions. First, we find that most online IQ research employs an explaining & predicting approach (i.e., explain what is occurring and provide testable predictions with causal relationships) as opposed to a design & action approach (i.e., design tools or frameworks for online IQ assessment). Second, our review reveals that a large proportion of papers have focused on the U.S. and student segments. Third, this review reveals that online IQ research focuses largely on online IQ consequences, with few studies focusing on perceived online IQ antecedents. Based on these findings, we suggest that future studies in this area: (i) Focus more on design &action research; (ii) Use a diversity of sampling populations; and (iii) Focus on the antecedents of the IQ construct as well as moderators for the relations between perceived online IQ and relevant factors.