Web Design Attributes in Building User Trust, Satisfaction, and Loyalty for a High Uncertainty Avoidance Culture

Abstract

In this study, we attempt to evaluate the user preferences for web design attributes (i.e., typography, color, content quality, interactivity, and navigation) to determine the trust, satisfaction, and loyalty for uncertainty avoidance cultures. Content quality and navigation have been observed as strong factors in building user trust with e-commerce websites. In contrast, interactivity, color, and typography have been observed as strong determinants of user satisfaction. The most relevant and interesting finding is related to typography, which has been rarely discussed in e-commerce literature. A questionnaire was designed to collect data to corroborate the proposed model and hypotheses. Furthermore, the partial least-squares method was adopted to analyze the collected data from the students who participated in the test (n = 558). Finally, the results of this study provide strong support to the proposed model and hypotheses. Therefore, all the web design attributes were observed as important design features to develop user trust and satisfaction for uncertainty avoidance cultures. Although both factors seem to be relevant, the relationship between trust and loyalty was observed to be stronger than between satisfaction and loyalty; thus, trust seems to be a stronger determinant of loyalty for risk/high uncertainty avoidance cultures.