Factors affecting webpage's visual interface design and style

Abstract

In the past, many researches of web interface were focused on usability and technical aspects. Instead, this research takes the visual communication-oriented approach to see how much the visual interface style adds to its rating. The main purpose of this study is to understand the design criteria and major factors that influenced different web visual interface styles. First of all, Researchers made use of literature review and interviews with 31 users to collect important information about key design criteria and guidelines of web interface design, from which a total of 11 major design criteria were identified. After that, a Likert-type 7-point scale was applied to rate 90 website based on 11 design criteria, and 32 subjects were invited to participate in an experiment. The result showed that 'title or logo, promotion of image, ease of information display, willingness to read, colors, structure, attraction, layout, usability, hyperlink, and readability of texts' were the important design criteria that users cared about. Subsequently, these 11 design criteria were further analyzed using principal component analysis to identify two critical factors, 'emotion factor' and 'function factor,' affecting users' evaluation. Finally, how the two factors and design criteria that influence six types of website interface style are discussed in the latter part of this paper. It is hoped that this research could provide valuable insight for web designers or developers to select a proper style based on users' evaluation. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Guest Editor.