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The Importance of Cognitive Mapping on Effective Website Design

By

Neo H.K., Tan G.W., Wei K.K.National University of Singapore

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Agenda Introduction Literature Review Research Model Research Methodology Current Status & Contributions Q&A

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Introduction Internet retailers must have effective Website

design in order to survive.

Effective Website design should assist users in making purchases, contributing to their satisfaction and performance.

However, poor Website design still exists, thus Users experience

“lostness”, dissatisfaction, poor user performance, and leave Website causing loss of online sales

Hence, need to assess effective Website design.

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Literature Review Current academic research on Website design

models fall into three dimensions: Purport – meaning conveyed or implied by contents of

Website Semblance – appearance of Website Morphology – organization and inter-linkages of Webpages

Purport dimension: Critical success factor Katerattanakul and Siau (1999) measured information

quality of Websites: context and accessibility important Webb and Webb (2002) measured information and service

quality of Websites: min. Website quality factors are reliability, assured empathy, perceived usability, trustworthiness

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Literature Review Semblance dimension:

Graphical Website increases user satisfaction (Zhang et al., 1999)

Well presented Website leave good impression (Zhang et al, 2000a) Convert browsers to customers and motivate users to revisit

(Grandon and Ranganathan, 2001)

Morphology dimension: Larson and Czerwinski (1998) showed that user

performance is optimal when breadth and depth of Website is kept to 7

In addition, Website can have more depth and small Webpages to yield positive user perceptions (Kim et al., 2002)

Troyer (1999) argued for a database approach towards Website design

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Literature Review Current models focus on identification of

specific Website features to improve user performance.

However, user performance cannot be explained simply by a Website feature.

Improvements in Web technology would introduce infinite features to be incorporated.

Hence, introduce wayfinding theory into Website design.

Wayfinding theory: a person would form a mental model of real environment, perform a cognitive mapping between mental model and real environment in order to navigate environment (Passini, 1984)

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Literature Review Cognitive mapping – process by which an individual

acquires, codes, stores, recalls, and decodes information about relative locations and attributes of real environment (Downs and Stea, 1973)

Determine user behaviour Inaccurate or incomplete mental model would lead to user

disorientation and confusion (Neisser, 1976)

Thus, we hypothesize that in physical Website environment, a user would build a mental model, map it to physical Website in order to navigate Website and complete task.

An effective Website design would reduce overhead involved in performing the cognitive mapping => better user performance.

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Research ModelIndependent Variables Dependent Variables

PurportFunctionality

SemblanceConsistent presentation style

MorphologyOrientation cues

Current Website Envt

User

Task

Effectiveness

Efficiency

Satisfaction

Website User PerformanceVary

Control

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Research Model We hypothesize that Website dimensions would

assist cognitive mapping from users’ mental model to physical Website such that users are able to accomplish task successfully.

Purport dimension: Informative content of Website provides the attributive

information needed to build users’ mental models Includes timely and relevant content functional to task

Hypothesis 1: H1(a): Presence of functional content positively impacts user

effectiveness. H1(b): Presence of functional content positively impacts user

efficiency. H1(c): Presence of functional content positively impacts user

satisfaction.

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Research Model Semblance dimension:

Consistent presentation style allows users to form a “template” of Webpage in their mental model and reduce cognitive burden on users.

Hypothesis 2: H2(a): Presence of consistent presentation style

positively impacts user effectiveness. H2(b): Presence of consistent presentation style

positively impacts user efficiency. H2(c): Presence of consistent presentation style

positively impacts user satisfaction.

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Research Model Morphology dimension:

Orientation cues facilitate in building of users’ mental models of Website by informing users of location and steps taken

Hypothesis 3: H3(a): Presence of orientation cues positively impacts user

effectiveness. H3(b): Presence of orientation cues positively impacts user

efficiency. H3(c): Presence of orientation cues positively impacts user

satisfaction.

User performance measured by: Effectiveness Efficiency Satisfaction

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Research Methodology Operationalization

Experimentation

Independent Variables Presence (high) vs absence (low) Website dimensions 8 treatments

Dependent Variables Effectiveness: accuracy of tasks Efficiency: time, clicks, path taken to complete tasks Satisfaction: questionnaire

Tasks & Procedure Subjects

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Current Status & Contributions Current Status

Analysing results from experiment

Contributions Proposal of a parsimonious framework for measuring

Website dimensions in relation to user performance Insights to formulation of guidelines so as to optimize

user performance & create genuine effective Websites.

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Questions and Answers

Thank You

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Operationalization IIWebsite

DimensionsOperationalization References

Purport - “Last update” statement- News- Reviews- Advertisements

Zhang et al. (1999), Turban (1999)

Semblance - Location of features- Colours and graphics usage- Templates

Zhang et al. (1999), Huizingh (2000)

Morphology - Sitemap- Navigation bar- Colour usage for hyperlinks- Breadcrumbs

Zhang et al. (1999), Turban (1999), Huizingh (2000),Nielsen (2000)