Emerald Article: Role of web site design quality in satisfaction and word of mouth generation Young Ha, Hyunjoo Im Article information:To cite this document: Young Ha, Hyunjoo Im, (2012),"Role of web site design quality in satisfaction and word of mouth Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by University of South Australia For Authors:If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comWith over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine a comprehensive model explaining how web site design influences consumer's emotional and cognitive responses and contributes to satisfaction and word-of-mouth (WOM) communication in an online shopping context. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 804 female college students completed an online survey after browsing one of two mock web sites developed to manipulate web site design quality. Findings -Web site design quality showed positive direct effects on pleasure, arousal, and perceived information quality and indirect effects on satisfaction and WOM intention. Pleasant shopping experience increased positive perceptions and satisfaction. The results also showed that satisfaction mediated the relationship between emotional and cognitive responses and positive WOM intention. Research limitations/implications -Although an online survey was used to increase the reality of an online shopping experience, uncontrolled conditions may have influenced the results of the study. Further research needs to be conducted in a laboratory setting to control these factors. Originality/value -The paper theoretically extends the applicability of the stimulus-organism-response paradigm to satisfaction and electronic WOM intention research and fills the gap in the current online shopping literature. The paper also offers valuable information to online retailers to maximize consumer satisfaction and generate positive WOM using web site design.

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Voice assistants are changing the way consumers shop. Guided by the anthropomorphism literature and parasocial interaction theory, this study investigated how the new unique relationship between consumers and artificial intelligence‐powered voice assistants may affect the way consumers evaluate the recommended products through two experiments. Study 1 (n = 85, students) employed a 2 (shopping medium type: voice assistant vs. website) × 2 (interaction style: task‐oriented vs. socially‐oriented) between‐subjects design lab experiment. Study 2 (n = 418, Mechanical Turk) employed a 2 (shopping medium type: voice assistant vs. website) × 2 (product type: search vs. experience) between‐subjects online experiment. The results suggested that consumers may perceive voice assistants as pseudohuman agents detached from the service provider while perceiving websites as a tool or interface used by the provider, resulting in a more positive perception and evaluation of websites. As one of the few studies investigating voice assistants from the consumer perspective, this study contributes to the growing body of research in voice assistants. The study also contributes to anthropomorphism literature and parasocial interaction theory by confirming the causal relationship between humanlikeness and parasocial relationships.

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-simulated, realistic three-dimensional environment. VR heightens a user's sense of being in the environment and enables the user to interact with the environment. We propose that VR can be a very cost-effective way to evaluate fashion retail store designs because of the ease of developing and adjusting the store designs as well as its ability to allow users to closely mimic the real store shopping experience. Also, these benefits create an opportunity for consumer researchers to investigate realistic shopper behaviors. In order to assess the effectiveness of using VR fashion retail store models in developing store designs and in understanding the way shoppers interact with the stores, an experiment with 40 female undergraduate students was conducted. This case study was written to share the advantage of using VR and the challenges VR uniquely presents with both fashion retailers and scholars. Implications for fashion retail store designers and managers as well as consumer researchers are discussed.

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