An Eye-Tracking Investigation of Internet Consumers' Decision Deliberateness

Purpose – Because presentation formats, i.e. table v. graph, in shopping web sites may promote or inhibit deliberate consumer decision making, it is important to understand the effects of information presentation on deliberateness. This paper seeks to empirically test whether the table format enhances deliberate decision making, while the web map weakens the process. In addition, deliberateness can be influenced by the decision orientation, i.e. emotionally charged or accuracy oriented. Thus, the paper further examines the effect of presentations across these two decision orientations.Design/methodology/approach – Objective and detailed description of the decision process is used to examine the effects. A two (decision orientation: positive emotion v. accuracy) by two (presentation: map v. table) eye‐tracking experiment is designed. Deliberateness is quantified with the information processing pattern summarized from eye movement data. Participants are required to make preferential choices from simple deci...

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