Comparison of Chinese and Japanese in designing B2C Web pages toward impressional usability

The paper proposes a method to evaluate the relation between visitors' impressions and the design of a B2C Web page. We also compared the impressions of Japanese with those of Chinese to find whether there was a difference in impressions due to culture and nationality, etc. Two empirical studies based on self-report questionnaires were conducted in Japan and China. The studies measured the subjects' impressions of various B2C Web pages that showed eight design factors. The evaluation values for the impressions were collected in the questionnaires. The study in China was conducted using the same procedure as in Japan except that all experimental materials were translated into Chinese. Sign test of the study results shows a significant difference in visitors' impressions corresponding to changes in design factors. The paper concludes by showing the implication of the empirical results on the design of B2C Web pages intended for international use.