Gender Difference in the Credibility Perception of Mobile Websites: A Mixed Method Approach

To persuade people to buy a product or service online, they must be visually convinced and attracted to use the sales website. Thus, there is need to understand how different user groups perceive various designs of websites for better adaptation. A lot of research has shown that users' judgment of the credibility of a website is critical to its success. However, in the mobile domain, little has been done empirically to 1) investigate users' credibility perception of a website; and 2) how it changes as the user interface (UI) design is systematically altered. This paper bridges this gap by carrying out sentiment and statistical analyses of users' perceptions of four systematically modified mobile websites among 285 subjects from North America, Africa and Asia. The results show that mobile website design affects the perception of its credibility, with 1) females being more critical and sensitive to UI changes than males; and 2) the grid-layout website design preferred to the list-layout website design by both genders. The study contributes to knowledge in three ways. First, it provides a concise model for understanding users' UI perceptions, expectations and gender differences. Second, it presents important findings that will enable a gender-based mobile website adaptation. Third, it provides a set of empirically backed guidelines for mobile web design.

[1]  David Robins,et al.  Aesthetics and credibility in web site design , 2008, Inf. Process. Manag..

[2]  W. Kruskal,et al.  Use of Ranks in One-Criterion Variance Analysis , 1952 .

[3]  R. Lewis,et al.  QDA Miner 2.0: Mixed-Model Qualitative Data Analysis Software , 2007 .

[4]  D. R. Danielson,et al.  How do users evaluate the credibility of Web sites?: a study with over 2,500 participants , 2003, DUX '03.

[5]  B Burstein,et al.  Sex differences in cognitive functioning: evidence, determinants, implications. , 1980, Human development.

[6]  Miriam J. Metzger,et al.  The perceived credibility of personal Web page information as influenced by the sex of the source , 2003, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[7]  J. Nantel,et al.  GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PROCESSING INFORMATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR ONLINE SEARCH PATTERNS AND TASK PERFORMANCE , 2005 .

[8]  Yung-Ming Li,et al.  Increasing trust in mobile commerce through design aesthetics , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[9]  Daniel S. Soper,et al.  User Interface Design and the Halo Effect: Some Preliminary Evidence , 2014, AMCIS.

[10]  Giuliano Gaia,et al.  Gender Issues in HCI Design for Web Access , 2008 .

[11]  Joan Meyers-Levy,et al.  Exploring Differences in Males' and Females' Processing Strategies , 1991 .

[12]  Phyllis Schumacher,et al.  Gender, Internet and computer attitudes and experiences , 2001, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[13]  Nai Li,et al.  Cross-Cultural Comparison of Women Students' Attitudes Toward the Internet and Usage: China and the United Kingdom , 2001, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[14]  Antonella De Angeli,et al.  Assessing Interaction Styles in Web User Interfaces , 2005, INTERACT.

[15]  B. J. Fogg,et al.  What makes Web sites credible?: a report on a large quantitative study , 2001, CHI.

[16]  Wendy Laura Belcher.  Introduction to the Text , 2015 .

[17]  Robert E. Smith,et al.  Gender differences in information processing strategies: An empirical test of the selectivity , 1995 .

[18]  Fintan Culwin,et al.  Enter the usability engineer: integrating HCI and software engineering , 2000, ITiCSE '00.

[19]  Steven John Simon,et al.  The impact of culture and gender on web sites: an empirical study , 2000, DATB.

[20]  Carol V. Brown,et al.  Gender and website design across cultures , 2009 .

[21]  R. Rosenthal,et al.  Skill in nonverbal communication : individual differences , 1979 .

[22]  Dianne Cyr,et al.  Web site design, trust, satisfaction and e-loyalty: the Indian experience , 2008, Online Inf. Rev..

[23]  Panayiotis Zaphiris,et al.  Advances in Universal Web Design and Evaluation: Research, Trends and Opportunities , 2006 .

[24]  M. Holbrook.  Aims, Concepts, and Methods for the Representation of Individual Differences in Esthetic Responses to Design Features , 1986 .

[25]  Xris Faulkner,et al.  Usability Engineering , 2000 .

[26]  Dianne Cyr,et al.  Design aesthetics leading to m-loyalty in mobile commerce , 2006, Inf. Manag..

[27]  Feng Xia,et al.  Introduction to , 2015, ACM Trans. Multim. Comput. Commun. Appl..

[28]  L. Brizendine,et al.  The Female Brain , 2008 .

[29]  Karyn Rastrick,et al.  Impacts of website design on the adoption intention of mobile commerce: Gender as a moderator , 2014 .

[30]  Dianne Cyr,et al.  Gender and website design in e-business , 2005, Int. J. Electron. Bus..

[31]  Kiemute Oyibo,et al.  An Empirical Analysis of the Perception of Mobile Website Interfaces and the Influence of Culture , 2016, PPT@PERSUASIVE.

[32]  Susan Ferebee,et al.  The Influence of Gender and Involvement Level on the Perceived Credibility of Web Sites , 2008, PERSUASIVE.

[33]  Simon Setterstrom.  Assessing credibility and aesthetic perception across different exposure times on a health care information website , 2010 .

[34]  Alistair A. Young,et al.  Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) , 2017, MICCAI 2017.

[35]  Marshall Scott Poole,et al.  Affect in Web Interfaces: A Study of the Impacts of Web Page Visual Complexity and Order , 2010, MIS Q..

[36]  J. Rossiter,et al.  The Predictive Validity of Multiple-Item versus Single-Item Measures of the Same Constructs , 2007 .

[37]  David C. Geary,et al.  Sexual selection and sex differences in mathematical abilities , 1996, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[38]  Gitte Lindgaard,et al.  Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression! , 2006, Behav. Inf. Technol..

[39]  Alice M. Tybout,et al.  Cognitive and Affective Responses to Advertising , 1988 .

[40]  T. Pohlert.  The Pairwise Multiple Comparison of Mean Ranks Package (PMCMR) , 2016 .

[41]  M. Linn,et al.  Gender differences in verbal ability: A meta-analysis. , 1988 .

[42]  Chun-Hung Liu,et al.  How Do the Aesthetics of HCI Design Influence Website Credibiltiy: A Study of Online Banking Website Interfaces in Taiwan , 2016 .