Consumer feelings and behaviours towards well designed websites

Abstract

We analysed the effect of a well designed website in terms of five indicators: purchase intention, positive attitudes, trust, satisfaction and perceived risk. These effects (measured by 21 items) were successfully combined into a single construct using Rasch's Model. The construct was then tested by building a website designed by experts for a fictitious clothes company. It was compared with four less-well-designed websites created by modifying the well designed website by removing one of the four major constructs [web security; customer service; amount and quality of information provided; and usability]. These websites were surfed by 350 consumers (in five subsamples); the experts were then asked to express their perceptions and attitudes of the sites a posteriori. The association between the five websites and the 21 items was displayed visually through a perceptual map built with DYANE software. This showed that a well designed website does not always have the best effect on all 21 items measured.