Effects of visual design on consumer perceptions of e-commerce websites for search and experience products

Abstract

Visual design is considered as one of key factors in online shopping, especially in the case of unknown sellers. The elements of visual design might be used by vendors to convey product quality information to consumers and decrease the risk perception. With limited ability to assess a product physically e-commerce creates information asymmetries which makes it difficult for consumers to effectively evaluate certain types of products. This is why it is important to understand the differences in visual design perceptions for search versus experience products and how product types affect consumer perceptions of a website. This study examines which elements of visual design play the most important role for search and experience products. The purpose of this study is to develop a visual design guideline for product page of e commerce websites. An experiment was conducted using hypothetical websites with eight conditions of treatment manipulation for one search and one experience product. Data have been collected from 281 Internet users and analyzed by using factor, reliability, correlation, interaction effects, and MANCOVA analysis. The results indicate that visual design quality influences consumers' perceptions of product quality, which subsequently affects risk perception. No significant difference between product types was found for pictures and background color elements. This study results show that on website with search product consumers prefer ornate font, while for experience product simple font is preferred. Implications for future research and website product page design are examined.