The Interplay of Aesthetics, Usability and Credibility in Mobile Websites and the Moderation by Culture

Abstract

The relationships between aesthetics, usability and credibility have been widely investigated in human-computer interaction (HCI). However, in the mobile domain, limited empirical evidence exists showing the interplay among these three constructs and the role culture plays. To address this, we carried out a survey on four systematically designed mobile websites among 233 subjects from Canada and Nigeria, which belong to low- and high-context cultures respectively. Using path modeling, we investigated the relationships among the perceptions of these three HCI constructs and the possible differences that exist between the two cultures. Our results show: 1) it is the perception of aesthetics that predominantly drives the judgment of mobile web credibility at the global and subgroup levels, with the effect size being greater for the Canadian group than for the Nigerian group; 2) the direct effect of aesthetics on usability is moderated by culture, with the magnitude being stronger for the Nigerian group than for the Canadian group; and 3) our models explain 29-83% of the variance of credibility.