| Online retailers want to build convivial Web sites that will incite visitors to explore them, to purchase the products they offer and to develop loyalty towards them. An extraordinary amount of design guidelines has been produced in recent years in order to attain this goal. While most of them are user-oriented, very few focus on shoppers' emotions even though we know that shoppers' emotional states affect consumption behaviors. This research investigates the relationship between Web site design and the emotions' processes during online shopping episodes. The major objective of this study is to discover the design components that are related to the emotions susceptible to lead to online behaviors that are particularly sought by retailers (exploration of the Web site, information gathering, purchase, etc.).; This thesis is composed of three essays. The first essay reviews the literature on Web site design with an emphasis on various sets of guidelines that have been proposed. The second essay introduces a conceptual framework establishing relationships between Web site interface design, cognitive appraisals (as emotions' antecedents), emotions and consumption behaviors related to retail goods shopping. The third essay tests a research model derived from the conceptual framework on data collected from 215 online shopping episodes occurring on four existing Web sites selling music cds and movies (DVD format).; The major findings of this research are the following. First, emotions---considered as the products of cognitive evaluations---are a reality associated with online shopping for retail goods. The emotions felt by respondents were: joy, liking, pride, dislike, frustration and fear. Second, as predicted by a theoretical framework on the determinants of emotions (Roseman, Antoniou and Jose 1996), data collected show that cognitive appraisals related to the online shopping episodes act as emotions' direct antecedents. Third, various components of Web site interface design have in turn a positive impact on three specific cognitive appraisal dimensions (situational state, probability and control potential) and are consequently associated to emotions felt by consumers. It is particularly the case for structure of information and navigation/orientation components.; These findings have significant theoretical and managerial implications. They highlight the research model's potential for the exploration of the impact of Web site interface design components on the emotional processes occurring during online shopping episodes. Additionally, this research proposes new sets of measures for Web site design interface and for cognitive appraisals in an online shopping perspective. On a practical level, the results obtained from the empirical segment of this research offer a new perspective for the development of guidelines related to the effective design of B2C Web sites. |
