The Effect of Information Design on Cognitive Processing of Website Navigation

Abstract

The information displayed on a website is a critical factor that affects the cognition of internet users. This study adopted a between‐subjects design to examine the effect of the information design of a website and the involvement of internet users on purchasing cognition. The results indicated significant differences between high‐ and low‐quality diagnostic information on the purchasing cognition of subjects. The subjects had better purchasing cognition when navigating a high‐quality diagnostic information website than when navigating a low‐quality diagnostic information website. In addition, there was a significant interactive effect of different qualities of nondiagnostic information and subject involvement on purchasing cognition. Namely, the subjects who had low involvement had better purchasing cognition when navigating a website with high‐quality nondiagnostic information than when browsing one with low‐quality nondiagnostic information, but there was no significant difference between navigating websites with high‐ and low‐quality nondiagnostic information if the subjects had high involvement.

Handling of online information by users: evidence from TED talks

“…Moving further, predictive models of web browsing behaviour based on its past records are viable as suggested by Lee et al (2015). Importance of the information provision style and consumers' perception is reported by Hsieh et al (2015) and Gao and Bai (2014), confirm like other studies above the cognitive processing of online information by visitors. The online information viewing attitudes of users may also differ according to cultural background and the organisation of societies.…”

Facets of Website Content

“…Existing research stress the importance of user perceptions: A number of studies find that subjective perceptions of website content are systematically related to general user reactions, such as overall attitudes and satisfaction (e.g., Kang & Kim, 2006;Palmer, 2002;Shukla, Sharma, & Swami, 2010), perceived ease of use, usefulness, and usability (e.g., Ahn, Ryu, & Han, 2007;Thielsch et al, 2014), trust (e.g., De Wulf et al, 2006Rahimnia & Hassanzadeh, 2013;Seckler et al, 2015), perceived website quality (e.g., Aladwani & Palvia, 2002;Kincl & Štrach, 2012), perceived overall service quality (e.g., Liu & Arnett, 2000;Yang et al, 2005), purchase intentions and sales performance (e.g., Hsieh et al, 2015;Shukla et al, 2010;Thongpapanl & Ashraf, 2011;Verhagen, Boter & Adelaar, 2010), website success, or website preference in terms of commitment, loyalty, and the intention to revisit (e.g., Aranyi & van Schaik, 2016;De Wulf et al, 2006;Kim & Niehm, 2009) or to recommend a website (e.g., Cober et al, 2003;Kim & Niehm, 2009;Thielsch et al, 2014). However, these studies are mostly correlational and use partly diverging conceptualizations of web content.…”

Online information retrieval behaviour and economics of attention

“…Considering the effect of information design of web sites on navigation, Hsieh et al (2015) analyse how information provision style effects the involvement of internet users. They show that users cognitively process information better when navigating web sites of higher quality diagnostic information.…”