Web Systems Design and Online Consumer Behavior [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Introduction

The evolution of information technology creates a lot
of changes in the real and virtual world. Increasing numbers of businesses are investing in the
development and management of online resources directed to consumers. Similarly, consumer use of
online services and information resources is increasing rapidly. Indeed, fleeted by both the
hardware and software advances, the World Wide Web (WWW) is perhaps the most fast developing new
medium in history.

The Web has experienced such exponential growth in such a short period of time that it has
become an essential resource for everything from breaking news to research, from software to
shopping. Accompanying the development of the Internet technology, information could be
unprecedentedly accessed without the physical restrictions of time and space (Palmer &
Griffith, 1998). The pervasive presence of URL addresses on advertisements, magazines, and products
means that consumers have more sites to choose from every day. The increasing complexity of Web
sites with their on-demand features and potential for personal response to individual visitors
calls for more than standard measures of this new medium. The recent failure of .com also cautions
online vendors to carefully leverage their online information flow.

E-commerce essentially shifts dust transactions to the virtual market. A typical goal for
virtual enterprises is development and maintenance of a complex information product defined as a
highly interconnected and interdependent package of information. However, development and
maintenance of the information shouldn’t only based on enterprises’ own preference. Flauder (1999)
reports that 39 percent of test shoppers failed in their buying attempts because sites were too
difficult to navigate. Hence, consumers’ cognitive needs and preferences should be considered to
increase the effectiveness of communication. Consequently, there is a need to bring new theory to
facilitate online player’s communication with their online consumers (Chircu & Kauffman,
2000).

Previous study has shown that one essential element of this communication is the way
information is displayed, which can significantly influence the way that consumers perceive and
process information. For instance, Russo (1975) showed that conversion of total product price
display to unit price displays reduced consumer food expenditures by allowing consumer to
effectively compare per unit prices across brands. The implementation of the National Labeling and
Education Act (NLEA) allows consumers to acquire more meaningful information from redesigned
nutrition labels (Moorman, 1996). The new design made the information on these labels more
complete, more comprehensible and less potentially deceptive. Weiss (1999) reports that the
complexity of the information format influences consumers’ buying behavior. He found that providing
a standard price format for the electricity industry allowed consumers to make more informed
purchasing decision.

Similarly, the way that information is arranged on the Web site can be expected to impact
consumers in effectively comparing competing offers in a manner that would reduce the cognitive
effort required to evaluate the online information. Compared with a print ad’s limited physical
space and a TV commercial’s rigid time limit, a Web site is virtually free from both limitations
(Chen & Wells, 1999). While the Web site’s “unlimited shelf space” (Stewart, 1998) gives
marketers more freedom to put whatever they want online, it also increases the risk of
over-complicating their Web site and consequently leads to consumer alienation. By comparison, a
Web site with optimal level of complexity for its purpose therefore is likely to increase the
communication effect of the Web site and enhance consumer satisfaction and retention. This
research, hence, aims to provide a conceptual framework to measure optimal complexity by taking
both objective and subjective complexity into consideration.