Consumers’ information needs on e-commerce websites

E-commerce is booming business. Growing globalization and upcoming new markets have made companies aware of the necessity to operate as effectively as possible on the internet in an international environment. This raises the question: will an e-commerce website that is successful in one country, automatically guarantee success in other countries? Can a website simply be copied and translated, or do cultural differences between users demand for local adaption of the website?

The International Usability Testing Partnership (IUTP) conducted a study that gives insight into this question. IUTP is an international network, established in 2008, in which approximately 70 usability companies and educational institutions collaborate. The study was executed from November 2009 till January 2010, under the authority of Concept7, a Dutch usability company and IUTP member.

What was investigated?

Specifically, what has been investigated is if there is a difference between consumers from different cultures in their information needs when choosing products on e-commerce websites. Two sub-questions were asked:

• Is there a difference between consumers from different cultures in the attention that they pay to different kinds of information when choosing products on e-commerce websites?
• Is there a difference between consumers from different cultures in how important they find different kinds of information when choosing products on e-commerce websites?

The first question was answered by using eye tracking technology, the second by a survey.

Sample

Subject to the study were consumers in six different countries and cultures:

• Colombia
• France
• Germany
• The Netherlands
• South Africa
• United Kingdom

In every country, 30 consumers participated, 180 all together. They were all born in the respecting country just as both of his/her parents, in the age of 20 – 31, highly educated (university or similar) and had some experience with online shopping. Participants in each country were more of less equally divided between men and women.

Data collection

Object of study was the e-commerce website Booking.com, Europe’s leading online hotel reservations website. All participants were asked to view the information (in their own language) about a certain hotel on the website. After that, they had to make a judgement on how attractive they found that hotel to book for their holiday trip to Paris.

On the website, six different kinds of product-related information were defined, based on the Consumer Information Processing Model (Liao, Proctor & Salvendy, 2008):

• product description (hotel description)
• product specifications (overview facilities, hotel policies and location)
• product images (hotel pictures)
• price and promotions
• expert information about quality (number of stars that the hotel has)
• customer reviews

When participants viewed the hotel information, it was measured how much attention they paid to each kind of information. That is, how long participants looked at each defined kind of information (length of fixation in seconds). This was measured by eye tracking.

After that, it was investigated how important participants had found each kind of information in order to make a judgement on the hotel. This was done by a survey, with 5 point scale questions ranging from ‘very unimportant’ to ‘very important’, for all six information categories.

All tests were run in by IUTP members in their usability labs in their own countries: Bunnyfoot (United Kingdom), Concept7 (The Netherlands), Miratech (France), SirValUse Consulting GmbH (Germany), Stuttgart Media University (Germany), UNISA School of Computing (South Africa) and YanHaas S.A. (Colombia).

Results and conclusion

Results show that there is a difference between consumers from different cultures in their information needs when choosing products on e-commerce websites:

There is a difference between cultures in the attention that they pay to different kinds of information on e-commerce websites.

 Significant differences between cultures were found for each of the six kinds of information categories investigated (product description, product specifications, product images, price and promotions, expert information about quality, and customer reviews). However, these differences largely disappear when looking at relative attention that is paid. For example, South Africans paid much more attention to product specifications (absolute) than other countries, but they spent only about 12% of their time looking at this information (relative), which is hardly more than other countries. Nevertheless, in an absolute way, differences exist.

There is a difference between cultures in how important they find different kinds of information when choosing products on e-commerce websites.

Significant differences between cultures were found for three out of six kinds of information: product description, product specifications and expert information about quality.

It can be assumed that the more important consumers find certain information, the more attention they pay to that information on the website. 

A positive correlation for each of the six kinds of information categories was found between the importance attributed to certain information and the attention paid to that information on the website. In other words, the more important consumers find certain information, the more attention they give to that information. However, the correlation was weak and only significant in the case of product specifications.

Differences between cultures in information needs on e-commerce websites

Based on the results, it can be concluded that there are differences between consumers from different cultures in their information needs when choosing products on e-commerce websites. So what are these differences?

• In South Africa they pay much more attention to product specifications than in any other country investigated, ranging from almost twice as much as in the United Kingdom to more than three times as much as in The Netherlands (The Netherlands scored also significantly lower than Germany, number two in the ranking). 

Besides, South Africans find this information most important of all countries (97% of the South Africans found this (very)important) and significantly more important than France and The Netherlands. Also, they find this more important than any other kind of information.

  
  South Africa has higher information needs for product specifications than Colombia, France, Germany, The Netherlands and United Kingdom, and finds this information more important than any other information.
  

• In South Africa they pay much more attention to prices and promotions than all other countries except Germany. However, they don’t consider this information more important than other countries do and they even find it less important than all other information.

  
  South Africa has higher information needs for price and promotions than Colombia, France, The Netherlands and United Kingdom, but still these information needs are lower than the needs for other information.

• In the United Kingdom they pay less attention to product descriptions than in any other country investigated. On the other hand, they do find this information important (93% found it (very) important). Countries that find this information most important are Colombia and South Africa. Product descriptions are found least important in The Netherlands (only 57% found it (very) important and 20% (very) unimportant).

  
  The United Kingdom and The Netherlands have lower information needs for product descriptions than France, Germany, and especially South Africa and Colombia. However, in the United Kingdom it’s still the second highest valued information compared to other information.

• In the United Kingdom they pay less attention to product images than in South Africa and Colombia. However, they don’t find this less important. On the contrary, they find this information more important than any other information.

  
  The United Kingdom has lower information needs for product images than South Africa and Colombia, but still finds this information the most important information.

• In the United Kingdom they pay more attention to expert information about quality than in Colombia and France. This information was considered most important by South Africans (87% found this information (very) important), and least by the French and Germans; respectively 33% and 43% found this information (very) important.

  
  South Africa and the United Kingdom have higher information needs for expert information about quality than Colombia, Germany and especially France.

• Most striking in the results is South Africa. This country shows higher information needs for product descriptions, product specifications, product images, price and promotions and expert information about quality than (some) other countries.
• Overall, product images formed the highest valued information. Expert information about quality was generally considered least important.

No clear relationship was found between the cultural differences in information needs found in this study and Hofstede’s (1991) and Hall’s (1976) theories on culture classifications. However, results give some indications that high-context cultures (Hall’s classification) may have more needs of product descriptions and product images than low-context cultures and that masculine cultures (Hofstede’s classification) may have more needs of product specifications and expert information about quality than feminine cultures.

Recommendations

Based on the results, it is recommended to take cultural differences into account when designing e-commerce websites for international audiences. Designers should keep in mind that some cultures, such as the South African, have higher information needs in general than other cultures. Also, some cultures give more value to certain kinds of information than other cultures. E-commerce web designs should reflect these differences by drawing more or less attention to these kinds of information.

Download the Cross-Cultural Eyetracking Study

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“Hi Paul this is Sean. How are you bro? Diarmud, Mark, Damian and I are throwing a big birthday party by the end of this month Are you coming over? just get yourself a ticket I will arrange a place to sleep and stuff.”

Ryanairs deceptive travel insurance option

Paul decides to take on this offer. He is really looking forward seeing them again and because he only needs a ticket, costs are also within his budget. He goes to the Ryanair.com website, he selects his flight and fills in the form.

Ryanair asks Paul what his country of residence is. By selecting his country he purchases travel insurance to cover his luggage, medical and flight delay. Paul is a healthy young man and he decides only to take hand luggage with him so he doesn’t need this insurance. However it’s not immediately clear how to select this option.

KPNs deceptive price order

Paul arrives at the airport early. He brought his laptop so he can do some schoolwork on his journey. At the airport he wants to check his facebook, e-mail and twitter messages. 30 minutes of Internet access is enough to do all this. Paul fills out the KPN form. There are a few options. At first glance it looks like they go from low to high. In fact, the cheapest and most likely option (he only needs an hour on the internet) is at the bottom of the dropdown while the other more expensive options are sorted from low to high.

Persuasion or deception?

When Ryanair and KPN designed their forms they could have designed it anyway they want. So why did they choose for these specific options? In terms of transparancy there are solutions that are more clear. Ryanair can use radio buttons to ask whether Paul wants travel insurance or not and only show a list of countries once he promted ‘yes’. KPN could easily reorder their list from 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 90 minutes and 24 hours.

They do it because they want to change Paul’s behavior. Ryanair tries to trick him into buying a travel insurance and KPN does the same for 90 minutes WiFi. I think they are crossing an ethical line here.

One could say that if Paul looks very carefully he could see the options he wants. However, it’s really easy to miss a piece of information (do the Awareness test). The way Paul’s options are presented influences his choice.

The way something is presented influences behavior

A great example of this is the system of organ donations. In Germany 12% of the people are registered as a donor. In their neighbour country Austria almost everyone, 99%, is registered as a donor. The secret has to do with one simple form element. Germany uses the system of Explicit Consent. You get a form on which you can tick a box and thereby give your consent becoming a donor. Austria uses the system of Presumed Consent. You get a form on which you can tick a box and thereby not giving your consent becoming a donor. The default rule has a great impact on the outcome it seems.

Source: Johnson, E. & Goldstein, D. (2003, November 21). Medicine: Do Defaults Save Lives? Science Magazine, 302 (5649), 1338-1339.

What is persuasion?

According to BJ Fogg of Stanford University we have entered an era of persuasive technology, of Interactive computer systems designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviors.

To him persuasion is an attempt to change attitudes or behaviors or both (without using coercion or deception). Are the Ryanair and KPN examples deceptive? I think they are. The way the choices are presented benefits the companies more than the customers and there are simpler and clearer ways to present the customer these choices.

Persuasion monitoring

The mission of the Federtal Trade Commission is to protect America’s customers. The European Advertising Standards Alliance believes in legal, decent, truthful and honest advertising. Maybe it’s time for these or other similar type of organisation to step up and develop a code of conduct and several tools. I have one idea for a tool. Why not set-up a public website on which people can find and report deceptive and coercive websites. Because it’s arguable whether something is persuasive or deceptive. The site could work with some kind of voting system. It will be interesting to see how many people agree with me that Ryanair and KPN have use deceptive tactics. In the end this whole monitoring effect would prevent companies to conduct deceptive and coercive behavior because you don’t want to be on that list.

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In their study ‘Getting the Message Across: Visual Attention, Aesthetic Design and What Users Remembers’ researchers A. Sutcliffe and A. Namoune from the University of Manchester investigate the relation between user attention and design quality. The goal of their study was to provide design guidelines for directing user attention.

They conclude that designers can apply the following strategies to direct user attention:

1. Use animation in a sequence to attract attention. Upsides: users’ attentions will be drawn to the animated areas. Downsides: the animated sequence can mean static areas are neglected. Concurrent, competing animations divert attention and are disliked.
2. Centre embedded images, especially showing people, to attract attention. Upsides: users’ attention will be drawn to the image. Downsides: other areas may be neglected.
3. Columnar structure for framing attention. Upsides: column structure distributes user attention more evenly and promotes scanning. Downsides: the design may be perceived as less interesting and aesthetic.
4. Reduce clutter in column layouts. Upsides: uncluttered or simpler layout reduce competing stimuli for user attention and promote a more aesthetic impression. Downsides: fewer items can be displayed per unit area.
5. Place important items on upper part of the page. Upsides: items in top half of a page will receive more attention. Downsides: placing many important items in upper area increases clutter.

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1. Designers dilemma: break new ground or stick to what is conventional

However there are several definitions of what usability is. Schneiderman for example identify five usability measures: time to learn, speed of performance, rate of errors by users, retention over time and subjective satisfaction. According to ISO-9241-11 usability consists of the three aspects: effectiveness, efficiency and subjective satisfaction and Jakob Nielsen defines usability by the five following components: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors and satisfaction.

Some researcher like McGee and Sauro and Kindlund believe that measuring usability in a single, standardizd metric is possible. They think that the different aspects of usability to some degree contribute the same information and can be combined.

To find out if such a strong correlation between the different aspects of usability exists Hornbaek and Lai-Chong Law performed a Meta-Analysis of Correlations Among Usability Measures.

Altogether 73 datasets were analyzed. Their study shows that there is a small to medium correlation between typical measures of usability. This makes defining usability in a single, standardized metric extremely difficult. Until the holy grail has been found it is better to use one of the defintions as stated by Schneiderman, ISO-9241-11 or Nielsen.

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After posting a message to the ACM newsletter i received a message from Davide Bolchini, Indiana University. Davide wrote a paper ‘Guidelines for Describing Usability Problems’ where he explains some recommendations on how to communicate usability findings and, in particular, on how to describe usability problems so that the reporting to the various stakeholders might be done in a more effective and efficient fashion.

Six guidelines for describing usability problems:

• Separation of concerns Decouple a usability problem into the various design dimensions it is concerned with (content, navigation, semiotics, graphics, …) and distinguishing between problems which are requirements-independent and problems depending on the requirements of the application (e.g. scenarios supported).
• Abstraction level Describe usability problems keeping a consistent level of granularity, moving from general to specific and without abruptly mixing details with strategic problems.
• Extendibility In case of complex applications, describe each problem as a representative of a class of problems, characterize each problem by providing a general statement pointing to specific examples.
• Authority Give reason of your findings by drawing to elements which can gain credibility, such as the experience of the analysts, the impact on the user experience and the compliance with the standard and convention.
• Prioritization Communicate your findings in order of importance: according to the circumstances, importance may mean gravity for the user experience or estimated effort needed to fix the problem.
• Technicality Adapt your concepts and wording to the target audience you are communicating with, in such a way that stakeholders should clearly understand the essence of the problems.

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1. Positive User Experience outweighs bad usability on social network sites

They have observed that many usability professionals, in practice, rely on single-perspective methods, typically involving users, or experts, but not both although the latter is more effective.

The research on comparisons of usability assessment methods suggests several lessons for practitioners.

First, while “faster, cheaper” methods such as heuristic evaluation and the pluralistic usability walkthrough can be useful for rapid iteration early in the design cycle, inspection methods cannot fully substitute for the empirical user testing needed before releasing an interface or Website to the public.

Second, empirical methods can also be used early in the development process, via “low-tech” versions of interfaces.

Third, developers often combine multiple inspection methods —heuristic evaluation and the cognitive walkthrough—in the same project so that they obtain better coverage of usability issues.

And fourth, adding multiple perspectives—along dimensions such as the range of stakeholders or kinds of usability problems—appears to improve the effectiveness of inspection methods.

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1. Positive User Experience outweighs bad usability on social network sites

Jakob Nielsen however states that any deviation from a convention will cause major usability problems.

And thus are designers faced with the dilemma of whether to break new grounds and innovate or stick to what is conventional.

In their paper The effect of violating visual conventions of a website on user performance and disorientation. How bad can it be? Luis Santa-Maria and Mary C. Dyson of the University of Reading investigated what happens to user performance and disorientation when visual conventions are violated.

Twenty-eight participants were randomly allocated to two independent groups: one was tested with a conventional website and the other with a convention-violating website.

Although initially violating visual conventions might hider user performance and leave users disoriented this experiment indicates there experiment indicates that these problems can be short-lived and users can adapt reasonably fast to a new set of visual conventions. So the decision to whether conform or violate visual conventions when designing a website should ponder that although users might adapt quickly to novelty there is an initial performance hindrance and disorientation.

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1. Five things website designers can do to direct user attention
2. Guidelines for Describing Usability Problems

The results of a heuristic evaluation show that Facebook performs poorly with regards to traditional usability guidelines. Only 2 of the 10 heuristics are adhered to in Facebook, while 4 were rated as having minor problems and 4 rated as having major problems. It has particular problems with consistency and standards, error prevention and recognition rather than recall. In theory, Facebook should not be the success it currently is due to its failure when tested using a traditional usability evaluation method.

When asked 26 participants to rate Facebook’s ease-of-use on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 (1 being “very easy”, 5 being “very difficult”) the majority of participants (85%) stated that it was “very easy” or “easy”. The remaining participants responded that it was “average”. None felt it was “difficult” or “very difficult”.

People use Facebook in a different way than most other websites. “I usually have Facebook open in the background, you know when I’m doing uni work and then every now and then I’ll, like… go and check for updates or just have a look around… do a quiz or something… just as, like, a break from working”. This new form of internet browsing, of ‘hanging around’ on websites contrasts with previous web surfing habits that Jakob Nielsen describes as: “Most people just want to get in, get it and get out”.

It is evident from this study that while Facebook fails in traditional usability evaluation terms it excels in providing many positive user experiences for its vast community of members. As a social web service it not only provides a great deal of social pleasure but provokes curiosity, provides a base for self expression and evokes memories of the past, along with a myriad of emotional and hedonic user experiences. In a system where the user has a specific goal in mind and satisfaction arises from qualities such as ease of use and enhanced productivity then guidelines such as Nielsen’s 10 heuristics are fit for purpose. However, these traditional usability methods do not capture the aspects of users who are looking for fun and pleasure while ‘hanging around’ on the WWW.

Therefore this calls for a more holistic approach, with the need for new design guidelines.

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1. Guidelines for Describing Usability Problems
2. Five things website designers can do to direct user attention
3. The Single Usability Metric

There are different views on what a usability practitioners role is. According to Janice Redish it’s to help a team release a product (hardware, software, document, or web site) that works for its user. In his paper ‘Stimulating Change Through Usabilty Testing’ Joseph Dumas pleas for a more broad perspective on the usability practitioners role. He writes that as a person responsible for usability testing, you have the opportunity to become a change agent in your organization or in the organization you are conducting the test for.

In his view usability test can have a larger, long-range influence on the way an organization develops its products and so is more than a way to improve the usability of a single product alone.

According to Dumas there are four important practices one can follow in using testing to change the way people think about and develop products:

1. involve designers in test planning
2. Encourage their participation in tests.
3. Structure your test reporting so that it speaks not only to specific, product-related problems, but also to the underlying technical and organizational causes of problems.
4. Provide periodic feedback to designers and managers about progress toward long-term goals.

I totally agree with Dumas his more broad perspective on the field.

The idea that usability practitioners are change agents has implication for the way findings are being reported. Instead of linking a specific problem to a specific cause one should also figure out the root cause of the problem. For example. The user could not continue his task because the error message confused him. A bad error message may instead indicate that the people who wrote the message do not understand what the user is trying to do when the error occurs because they did not do a task analysis before they started their design.

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In the early days of the internet, plenty of talks would show a photo of a train and someone who just missed it. The message was clear, if you donʼt jump on the train now, your competitors will overtake you. Many organizations did not take that risk and rose to the challenge. In a little while the bubble burst.

In the end, running a business is all about one thing: making profit.

There are two ways in which businesses can make more profit:

• generate a higher revenue
• reduce costs

Obviously one makes most profit by doing both.

ʻYou canʼt manage what you donʼt measureʼ is a famous saying of management guru Peter F. Drucker. In this article, we will focus on calculating return on investment of usability. After a period of investment in wild ideas, the time has come now to handle the internet in a grown-up kind of way.

What is Usability?

Usability is a quality aspect and it is all about the way a user can use a website effectively and efficiently to reach his or her goals.

Benefits of usability for end users:

• users comprehend the system quicker and reach their goals faster
• users experience their visit as pleasant, come back sooner and recommend the website to others
• users develop confidence in both the website and the company behind it
• users can deal with all matters on the website, without the use of extra tools such as phone or email

More profit thanks to usability

Usability is great for customer confidence

The basis of each transaction comes down to confidence. Confidence of the customer in the organization keeping their promises. Usability increases confidence. Research by Stanford University tells us that usability comes in second place in terms of important factors that influence customer confidence.

Usability allows users to reach their goals

Eventually every website has just one goal and that is persuade the visitor to do something. You might want the visitor to fill out a form, provide personal details or order a product. In practice, this does not always work very well. Shopping carts are left before submitting the order at least 3 out of 4 times. Five out of ten apparent reasons are related to usability.

Usability leads to higher customer satisfaction

More and more companies measure customer satisfaction. A high customer satisfaction is important, because companies can only maximize their profit by growing. Selling more to existing companies and expanding the customer base are crucial. An interesting example of usability resulting in higher customer satisfaction is the case of the Asda supermarket chain. Asda did numerous changes on their website to improve usability and was awarded with a higher customer satisfaction.

A research by Gartner shows that usability testing and the consequences of implementing usersʼ demand, can increase customer satisfaction with 40%. When systems live up to the userʼs expectations, we see an enormous increase in customer satisfaction.

Usability encourages word of mouth

People influence each other. A recommendation of someone we know has a great effect on our decision to buy something. A bad recommendation even has double the effect that prevents us from buying something. A satisfied customer will tell his positive experience to an average of three friends. However, an unsatisfied customer will spread his annoyance to an average of eleven friends. Positive user experience is quite important when stimulating positive word of mouth.

Usability results in positive reviews

Positive reviews of our website and our products and services are valuable to get sufficient traffic to our website. We see more and more usability in reviews. On average, about 15% of the content of a review is about usability. Huge media companies like The New York Times, the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal publish weekly columns in which sofware is discussed. It is vital to be mentioned not in a negative way, but in a positive way. Usability as distinguishing capacity.

Lower costs thanks to usability

Saving on development costs

Many software projects exceed the initial budget. This happens mostly because we find bugs that have to be solved first, while working on the project. About 63% of sofware projects runs over the original budget. The main reason for overspending is the lack of user research in the initial phase.

Saving time during development

In the development phase no revenue is made yet. The faster the website is available to the public, the faster revenue is made. Making the development phase more time efficient is one of the most important reasons to implement usability research. Slowing down lead time with 25% can decrease profit with 50%.

Reducing maintenance costs

Having your website launched, you are not there yet. The website has to be updated and expanded with new functionalities regularly.  It is showed that 80% of the costs of a website are made during development phase and that these costs were not forecasted and consequences of bad usability.

Case Drill Ltd

Drill Ltd produces drills that work remarkably well when cutting holes in dimension stone. The director, Erik Stevens, recently talked to a company that performs user tests for websites. You are an employee of Drill Ltd and responsible for their website. The director asked you whether performing a user test is a sensible investment. In other words, can we make any money out of it?

Step 1: gather current data

Before we can start with our calculation, it is important to look at the current status of the website.

Conversion rate is the ratio of visitors that a website can persuade to desired actions. If one out of hundred visitors of your website is persuaded to perform the action, the conversion rate is 1%.

Step 2: Calculate the costs of the user test

First we will calculate what the costs of performing a user test are. In our calculation we also specify the costs of the improvement of Drill Ltdʼs website.

Step 3: Calculate the return on investment

We now know what the current status is and we know what performing a user test and solving the main issues will cost us. In step 3 we will look at the revenues and calculate when we will earn back our investment. We saw that investments in usability result in more revenue and lower costs. In our example we will only look at website statistics and conversion rate, not at any other categories.

It is common that efforts in usability result in a revenue or visitor increase of 100% or more. Erik Stevens is quite a conservative director, so we decide to go for a worst case scenario in our calculation. We will therefore assume an increase of ten percent. That comes down to 22.000 visitors a year.
In 2004 the Fireclick Index published conversion rates across a variety of segments. The average conversion rate for the electronics segment is 1.1%. The conversion rate of Drill Ltd is 0.2%, which is quite bad. In our calculation we assume a new conversion rate of 0.5%. In practice, this number will be higher, since usable websites have higher conversion rates than average.

Our new revenue then comes down to 22.000 visitors * 0,5% conversion rate * €299 average purchase amount = €32.890.

The current revenue is €11.960. Our investment of €3.390 results in an revenue increase of €20.930.

When looking at profit, we can say we have an increase of 22.000 visitors * 0.5% conversion rate * €99 average profit = €10.890 – 3960 profit we had earlier = €6930 total profit increase.

To calculate how long it will take before we earned back our investment, we devide the total costs by the total profit increase and multiply that by 365 days = 178 days. Thus the investment is earned back in a half year. After that only profit will be made. After the investment pays for itself, we will make €6930 every year. And not just in the current year, also in the years after. Erik Stevens is happy about your calculation and asks you to improve the usability of the website.

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