This study examines the joint effects of interactivity, task complexity, and product knowledge on customers’ online purchase decision quality. Interactivity is defined as the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real-time. For example, users sort products on a website based on certain criteria (e.g., price). An experiment with 264 participants was conducted to test the hypotheses. The results suggest that interactivity and task complexity jointly affect customers’ online purchase decision quality. When customers perform a complex task, interactivity reduces the cognitive resources needed to perform the task and thus improves customers’ decision quality. However, when customers perform a simple task, interactivity worsens the mismatch between the cognitive resources available and what is required, leading to deteriorated decision quality. Similarly, product knowledge and task complexity interact to influence customers’ decision quality. Product knowledge improves decision quality when customers perform a complex task, whereas it results in deteriorated decision quality when customers perform a simple task. In addition, interactivity interacts with product knowledge to affect customers’ intention to revisit the website. Specifically, interactivity has a stronger effect on customers’ intention to revisit the website when the customer has more product knowledge.

这项研究考察了交互性，任务复杂性和产品知识对客户在线购买决策质量的共同影响。交互性定义为用户可以参与实时修改中介环境的形式和内容的程度。例如，用户基于某些标准（例如价格）在网站上对产品进行分类。进行了264名参与者的实验以检验假设。结果表明，交互性和任务复杂性共同影响客户的在线购买决策质量。当客户执行复杂的任务时，交互性会减少执行任务所需的认知资源，从而提高了客户的决策质量。但是，当客户执行简单的任务时，交互性加剧了可用的认知资源与所需资源之间的不匹配，导致决策质量下降。同样，产品知识和任务复杂性会相互作用，从而影响客户的决策质量。当客户执行复杂任务时，产品知识会提高决策质量，而当客户执行简单任务时，产品知识会导致决策质量下降。此外，交互性与产品知识相互作用会影响客户重新访问该网站的意图。具体而言，当客户具有更多产品知识时，交互性会对客户重新访问该网站的意图产生更大的影响。当客户执行复杂任务时，产品知识会提高决策质量，而当客户执行简单任务时，产品知识会导致决策质量下降。此外，交互性与产品知识相互作用会影响客户重新访问该网站的意图。具体而言，当客户具有更多产品知识时，交互性会对客户重新访问该网站的意图产生更大的影响。当客户执行复杂任务时，产品知识会提高决策质量，而当客户执行简单任务时，产品知识会导致决策质量下降。此外，交互性与产品知识相互作用会影响客户重新访问该网站的意图。具体而言，当客户具有更多产品知识时，交互性会对客户重新访问该网站的意图产生更大的影响。