A Correlational Study on Web Site Homepage Visual Design and User''''s Satisfaction Using Auto Manufacturer''''s Homepages as an example

• Main Authors: Ou Shang-Ching, 歐上晉
• Other Authors: Chan, Shin-Chien
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/27084876220603391228

碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 設計管理研究所 === 91 === It has been more than 10 ten years since the National Science Foundation of United States formally offered the Internet for commercial usages in 1991. With the prosperity of the Internet, the number of Websites has increased remarkably. If enterprises set up websites in the Internet, the homepage of the enterprise website is the very thing that users encounter with. In this way, the homepage represents the image of an enterprise in the Internet. It is, therefore, an issue whether users are satisfied with the homepage design of an enterprise. In the study, the degree of user’s satisfaction towards the website homepage is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the homepage of an enterprise’s website. The correlations between different visual design elements of websites and user’s satisfaction as well as the effect of such correlations on user’s preferences were explored. The study was divided into three stages. In the first stage, related data and literature was gathered. In the second stage, conclusions obtained from literature review were used as guidelines to design the questionnaires. Through the pilot test, questions of which the reliability and validity were not good enough were deleted. Later, the formal survey questionnaires through the Internet were processed to collect the user’s evaluation of satisfaction. At last, suggestions for future work were offered as references for practical design and research in the future. In the third stage, statistical analyses of the data gathered from 124 copies of survey were conducted to verify the research hypotheses. The results of the survey indicated that there exist close relationships between visual design elements of the website homepage and user’s satisfaction. The following conclusions were reached: (1) In terms of satisfaction, there were no significant differences between users with design backgrounds and those without design backgrounds. (2) In terms of visual design elements, the icon design has the biggest effect on the user’s experiential factors; textual character has the smallest effect. (3) The layout design has the biggest effect on affective factors while textual character has the smallest effect. (4) In the information need factors, textual characters have the biggest influence; animation design has the smallest effect. (5) In the communication clarity factors, textual characters have the biggest influence while animation design the least. (6) For user’s preferences, the animation design has the biggest influence whereas the textual design has the smallest impact. (7) As far as user’s satisfaction is concerned, the affective factor has the biggest influence while the communication clarity factor has the smallest effect.