A cross-cultural study of website complexity and website evaluation outcomes
RIS ID
103807
Abstract
The internationalization of websites requires compelling navigation experience for users from diverse cultures. This research investigates the moderating role of cultural cognitive style on cross-cultural website usability. Laboratory experiments involving participants from China and United States were used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that cultural cognitive style affects user perception of objective website complexity and user performance when searching information. The impact of objective website complexity on perceived complexity and user performance was stronger for Westerners with analytic cultural cognitive style than Easterners with holistic cultural cognitive style. This study extends website complexity literature to the cross-cultural context. It also suggests pragmatic strategies for website design practitioners to improve website design in order to attract international audiences.
Publication Details
Cui, T., Wang, X. & Teo, H. (2011). A cross-cultural study of website complexity and website evaluation outcomes. Proceedings of the 71st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM 2011)