Is It Still Where I Expect It?—Users’ Current Expectations of Interface Elements on the Most Frequent Types of Websites

Abstract

Knowing users' expectations about what they expect on a website and where they expect to find it is crucial for the success of a website. For the last decade, technological advances have entailed major changes in website design but the impact of these changes on users' mental representations of websites remains unclear. In an online study (N = 841), we asked users to sketch their prototypical version of an online shop, a news website and a company page, thereby indicating the interface elements they expect on the website and their expected location. We compared our results to those of a previous study to investigate changes in users' mental representations of websites over time. This comparison suggests that interface elements such as the logo, main content and navigation area are still expected in the same location although others have shifted to the rich footer area at the bottom of the website. In addition, new elements such as links to social networks have been incorporated into users' mental representations whereas other interface elements have disappeared. By providing updated consolidated blueprint models for all three website types, we help designers to create expectation-based websites. Further implications for research and practitioners are discussed. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS• Measuring current expectations about the location of interface elements, • Website layout: composition and expected location of interface elements,• Gain insights into developments in users' expectations over time.

E-Commerce Design by Older Adults: The Selection and Placement of Web Objects on Shopping Sites

“…This depiction of a browser window also included an adaptation of the technique used in (Bernard, 2001;Cassidy and Hamilton, 2014;Jach and Kulinski, 2015;Roth et al, 2010;Roth et al, 2013), where grid squares were marked on the template to facilitate the users' task of placing objects onto the interface prototypes (see also Web Objects and Figure 1). Common web objects such as the logo, search box, main menu navigation, shopping cart, and help were pre-placed on the template (Roth et al, 2010;Roth et al, 2013;Heinz et al, 2017).…”