Developing theoretical models of website usability: Instrument development and validation.

摘要

Developing usable websites is pivotal for the success of e-business since online consumers touch, feel, search, and experience products (or services) mainly through the websites. However, studies have reported that a majority of current websites contain several usability problems. There are many reasons for poorly designed websites, but this study focuses on the lack of a good theoretical model of website usability. Such a model would explain and predict the effects of website usability on the perceptions of online consumers. This study proposes and validates two new theoretical models of website usability by adopting and extending Kaplan's landscape preference model in environmental psychology and music composition theory in music.; Three separate field studies are conducted to validate the proposed theoretical models, whose data are used for investigating psychometric properties of the instruments, nomological networks, and generalizability under different boundary conditions. Structural equation modeling technique (LISREL) is utilized to conduct measurement and structural model analysis.; The findings demonstrate that the proposed models explain a large amount of variance of cognitive and affective appraisals, purchase intention and actual purchase, and measurement instruments have good psychometric properties. The generalizability of the models also is confirmed under different gender and age.; For researchers, this study proposes two alternative theoretical models, which can be used as alternatives for stimulating prolific research in the website usability area and thereby enhancing our understanding of the effect of website usability on the perceptions of online consumers. The validated instruments also can be utilized in future usability studies and accumulated study findings can be directly compared.; For practitioners, determination of the relationships between website usability constructs will primarily aid website designers in successfully allocating limited website design resources to enhance overall website design quality. Moreover, using the identified instruments and nomological networks, management of e-business companies can evaluate the usability level of their own websites and at the same time, compare the usability level of their website with that of their competitors to establish industrial standards. By evaluating the usability levels of the website and comparing it with that of its competitors', e-business companies can make strategic decisions on how to improve current websites.