Purpose

The success of e-commerce websites depends on their effective communication and influence on their users. At first glance, the users are impressed by the website design and, if inspired, they would continue their operations on the website. This paper aims to evaluate the effects of visual aesthetic of the Web pages on users’ behavior in online shopping environment. In particular, the paper aims to evaluate the elements of visual aesthetic on the organism variables (i.e. “satisfaction,” “arousal,” “perceived on-line service quality” and “trust”) and measure them on the users’ response (i.e. purchase, comparison and re-visit).

Design/methodology/approach

Using the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) framework, the authors first assessed direct and indirect effects of visual aesthetics of e-commerce websites on customer responses. Then, the Visual Aesthetics of Websites Inventory (VisAWI) method was used to examine the effects of four dimensions (i.e. craftsmanship, simplicity, diversity and colorfulness) on users’ perceived website aesthetics. To do so, DigiKala.com, a famous Iranian e-commerce website was selected and the questionnaires were distributed among its users.

Findings

The study results revealed that the website aesthetics in the S-O-R evaluation had the greatest direct impact on “perceived quality of online services,” “trust,” “satisfaction” and “arousal,” respectively. These variables also indirectly affected “shopping,” “revisit” and “comparison to similar products on other websites.” Regarding the evaluations based on the VisAWI, the component “craftsmanship” played the most central role in expressing the website aesthetics, followed by the variables “simplicity,” “diversity” and “colorfulness,” respectively.

Originality/value

Although the considerable effect of Web aesthetics on customers’ purchase behavior has been identified in previous research, it has not been accurately measured. Furthermore, studies on Web aesthetics are mostly limited to information systems’ users and do not concern consumers. Therefore, considering the increasing growth in online shopping and the significance of Web aesthetics to online consumers, investigating how consumers respond to Web aesthetics is of vital importance.

中文翻译：

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使用VisAWI方法分析网页的视觉美感对在线零售中用户响应的影响

目的

电子商务网站的成功取决于其有效的沟通和对用户的影响。乍一看，用户对网站的设计印象深刻，如果受到启发，他们将继续在网站上进行操作。本文旨在评估网页的视觉美学对在线购物环境中用户行为的影响。特别是，本文旨在评估有机体变量（即“满意度”，“听觉”，“感知的在线服务质量”和“信任”）上的视觉美学元素，并根据用户的反应（即购买，比较和重新访问）。

设计/方法/方法

作者使用刺激－有机－响应（SOR）框架，首先评估了电子商务网站的视觉美学对客户响应的直接和间接影响。然后，使用网站库存视觉美学（VisAWI）方法检查四个维度（即工艺，简单性，多样性和色彩丰富度）对用户感知的网站美学的影响。为此，选择了伊朗著名的电子商务网站DigiKala.com，并在用户中分发了调查表。

发现

The study results revealed that the website aesthetics in the S-O-R evaluation had the greatest direct impact on “perceived quality of online services,” “trust,” “satisfaction” and “arousal,” respectively. These variables also indirectly affected “shopping,” “revisit” and “comparison to similar products on other websites.” Regarding the evaluations based on the VisAWI, the component “craftsmanship” played the most central role in expressing the website aesthetics, followed by the variables “simplicity,” “diversity” and “colorfulness,” respectively.

Originality/value

尽管在先前的研究中已经确定了Web美学对客户购买行为的重大影响，但尚未对其进行精确测量。此外，有关网络美学的研究主要限于信息系统的用户，而不涉及消费者。因此，考虑到在线购物的增长以及网络美学对在线消费者的重要性，调查消费者如何响应网络美学至关重要。