WEB DESIGN OPTIMIZATION: FOR ONLINE STORES

Abstract

The purpose of this study is web design optimization, finding the most optimized user interface (UI) for online stores. From previous researches, we believe that consumers’ perceived values of the products they shop, and their actual purchase intentions are significantly affected by web design factors – colour of the background, placement of the product image on its product page, length of the page, and much more (Kim et al., 2003). To extend such study, we conducted a survey research on whether and how different categories of products should be placed on different positions of the web page (right vs. left; top vs. down; scroll vs. button-click page turn) to maximize customers’ perceived product values and to increase their purchases. To conduct the survey, we used both online and offline survey channels (but with the same survey questionnaire and design). To look for and control possible cross-cultural variations in people’s preferences over this online product placement and web design, we also collected each respondent’s cultural demographic backgrounds nationalities, languages, ages, majors. The survey consists of three different studies, all 2 by 2 models and responses on 7-point Likert scales. We have conducted a series of surveys on undergraduate and graduate students from various cultural and demographic backgrounds and have statistically analysed this set of data using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and logistic regressions. The survey was conducted three times, from 2016 to 2017. The results have supported majority of our hypothesis: as one, the perceived price of a product is higher when displayed on the right, and this significantly increases their purchase intentions. Such positive relationship is mediated by the percentage difference between the perceived price and the actual price of that product. We believe this study has made additional contributions on this area of academic researches product placement and purchase intentions and that the findings from here can provide some meaningful implications to the practitioners in improving their product pages to enhance online consumers’ shopping experience and increase sales.