Current Issue
Cultural Considerations and Applicability of Western Usability Guidelines in the Design of Chinese E-commerce Websites - 4 January 2005
by Ming-Po Tham, Guomei Zhou and Xiaolan Fu
Read this article in Chinese (translated by Christina Li)
Published with Beijing ISAR User Interface Design Co. ’s permission
Abstract The key to the success of e-businesses is to understand what entices people to buy things online and to provide them with the means to carry out these shopping transactions. E-business Web page designers must also have a sound understanding of the consumer behaviors in the targeted markets. Research to understand the psychology and expectations of online shoppers will not only help consumers and e-businesses but also the makers of the equipment and telecommunication infrastructure which supports these businesses. This paper discusses some of the issues in our research to i) understand what motivates Chinese consumers to buy online and ii) whether the Web usability guidelines derived in the West are appropriate for Chinese consumers.
Key words: e-commerce, usability, cultural differences, consumer behavior, WAP
1. INTRODUCTION
Online commerce is growing at an extremely rapid pace and it has been estimated that new e-commerce sites make their way onto the Web almost hourly [1]. E-commerce is expected to account for about 5 percent of the gross domestic product in the world’s top 25 economies in a few short years [2]. Traditional retailers are going online in droves and the growth in e-business is not confined to the West. In China for instance, e-commerce transactions are expected to increase as the number of Internet users increases from its current estimate of 10 million to 60 million in 2005 [3]. Adding to the potential pool of Chinese e-shoppers are the owners Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) mobile phones. The number of WAP equipped phones in China is expected to grow from between two and five million units at the end of 2000 to 250 million units by 2004 [4, 5].
Other data paint a more sobering picture of e-business. Analyses by GartnerGroup predict that 75 percent of all e-business startups will fail [6]. Recent study conducted by Zona Research found that about 30 percent of the Internet-savvy users in their survey experienced difficulty finding the product they want on the Internet; twenty percent have abandoned their purchases at least three different times when shopping on the Web; and thirty-nine percent of the users in this survey also decided either not to buy online or take their shopping elsewhere [1]. Other studies have found that up to 60-75 percent of e-shopping transactions were discontinued, and e-tailers were having difficulty building loyal customer bases as online customers turned back to traditional brick-and-mortar stores or print catalogues to make their purchases [1, 7, 8, 9]. Similar observations were made in Asian cities. For instance, all the participants in an online “survival test? staged by the Chinese government in three major Chinese cities in the latter half of 1999 expressed negative views of the adequacy of China’s e-commerce industry [10]. It also appears that Asian e-businesses are having a harder time than their western counterparts. Of every $7 spent on e-commerce in Asia, $6 goes to non-Asian companies [11].
1.1 Online shopping in China
China is one of the fastest growing and potentially the largest consumer market in the world. To ensure that we are ready with solutions to the problems which e-shoppers and e-businesses are likely to encounter when e-retail becomes mainstream in China, a research program at the Institute of Psychology in Beijing has been initiated to study the experiences and responses of Chinese consumers in their early and subsequent encounters with e-shopping. In parallel with this, effort is also being made to determine whether i) Web usability guidelines derived in the West are appropriate for Chinese consumers and, ii) the extent to which usability guidelines derived from e-shopping studies conducted on desktop computers are applicable to handheld devices. The goal of our research is to obtain an understanding of what motivates Chinese consumers to buy online, and how to enhance the quality of their online shopping experience. The result of this series of studies will benefit not only the consumers but also the development of the equipment and infrastructure to support online business in China. Some of the issues we are addressing are highlighted in this paper.
2. ONLINE SHOPPING BEHAVIOR ? IS THERE A CULTURAL UNDERPINNING?
The problems encountered by e-shoppers and the situation facing e-businesses have resulted in a proliferation of books and articles on topics ranging from Web page design to marketing strategies to help e-businesses stay viable. A subject frequently discussed in these literature is website design and measures to promote web usability (see Nielsen’s website: www.useit.com for a sampling of these). Consumer Behavior, and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research has helped practitioners become aware of the need to be sensitive to the different purchasing and behavioral patterns of consumers and software users across different cultures. However, the World Wide Web is widely accepted to be a world without borders and in which the physical location where business is conducted is of little importance. As Schwartz observes, the Web resembles a parallel universe that mirrors the physical world in some ways but exhibits entirely unique properties in others. Consumers? behavior changes dramatically when they enter this Web space and have different expectations when interacting with a company on the Web [1, 2]. The consequence of this is that the conventional metrics for measuring the usability of a software could not be used to evaluate the usability of a website [12]. Other observations show that the manners in which visitors traverse the Web are very different from their interaction with software [6]. Differences are also manifested in how people scan but rarely reading word-by-word the contents in Web pages [9] and their information retrieval and navigation strategies vary greatly depending on the task they are performing on the Web [2, 12, 13].
2.1 Evolution of Web culture and influence on consumers? behavior
The evidence above leads us to ask if a unique and universal Web culture will evolve over time and whether the behavior of online shoppers in China will eventually resemble those of their western counterparts in this cyber-world. Our work would be cut out for us if this premise holds true because the behavior of online shoppers in the West could then be used to predict the behavior of e-shoppers in Asia. But then again, it is unlikely that this would be the case. If consumers in countries like the US who are familiar with catalogue shopping are having bad experiences with online shopping, then it would be all the more difficult for Chinese consumers to take to e-shopping when they are only beginning to have access to the Internet and exposure to online services. In other words, Western and Chinese e-shoppers (and e-businesses) are on very different learning curves.
2.2 Local consumer cultures – resistance to change
The other side of the argument is that cultural differences are so deeply rooted that they are reflected even in e-shoppers? behavior on the Web. Research in consumer behavior reveals very different motivational factors for purchase and consumption patterns between consumers in Asia and the rest of the world markets. Social recognition is important in a collectivist society and Asian consumers tend to be motivated by externally focused, social needs such as affiliation, admiration and status. However, Sch?tte and Ciarlante note that even within Asia, there are striking differences in consumer preferences across cultures. For instance, Japanese consumers place strong emphasis on service rather than price. Because of their generally lower income, Chinese consumers on the other hand, are more price conscious in their purchase decisions. Because of their cultural characteristics, it also takes far longer to establish brand loyalty with a Chinese consumer than it does with a Western consumer. The curiosity Chinese consumers have for brands leads to a high level of variety-seeking brand switching. If a product fails to deliver on important product attributes, Chinese consumers? pragmatism and relative lack of emotional ties with the specific products or brands allows them to try without hesitation another brand, provided that such a move does not conflict with group norms [14]. Against this backdrop, it is difficult to ignore the ociocultural underpinnings of traditional retail consumer behavior even though online shopping is the focus of our research. This being the case, then the e-business website usability guidelines developed in western countries must be examined for cross-cultural transposability. It is not because these guidelines are cross-culturally invalid; indeed there is much in common. For instance, Web usability guidelines to facilitate users? navigating through Websites, proper use of colors and background, text formatting, etc., are equally appropriate to users of all cultures [15; 16; 17]. But consumer’s decision to buy, or not buy is not determined by usability considerations alone. We also need to develop an understanding of what brings an e-shopper online, and the factors necessary to transform a visitor to an e-business site into a buyer. And, an understanding of the attitude and culture of the potential users can help us provide the usability and add to the quality of their online shopping experience. Our approach then is to use studies conducted in countries with more matured e-business enterprises as frameworks to guide us in this series of studies in China. This allows us—without reinventing the wheel—to adopt the best practices and formulate new guidelines where the existing ones are inadequate. Our initial work in this area is centered on cross-cultural comparisons of findings pertaining to e-shoppers decision making and purchasing behavior in the east and west.
3. USABILITY GUIDELINES FOR WEB BROWSERS IN PORTABLE DEVICES
The design principles applied to e-commerce websites today are based on lessons learned from the development of e-information Websites; these in turn, were built on the foundation of HCI research in other application domains. Studies of website usability have however found that users have different modes of information seeking behaviors depending on the tasks performed. Navigation through Web sites is very different from navigation through the user interface of software and hardware products. Designing for the Web is different from traditional software user interface and as Spool points out, navigation and content of the Website are intricately linked [12, 13, 18]. At the same time, people respond differently to the same information presented on different medium [2]. In designing for the Web, the designer surrenders full control and has to share responsibility for the user interface with users and their client hardware/software [18]. Given that consumers can now access the Web wirelessly via WAP capable cellular phones and pocket PCs, these observations have important implications not only on the design of websites but also the design of the devices which enable wireless access to the Web.
3.1 Problem displaying high information content webpages in pocket PCs
Usability guidelines for software applications in PCs and Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) are often inapplicable to cellular phones even though much effort has gone into making cellphone interfaces emulate that of PCs and PDAs?. This is because devices like pocket PCs and cellphones typically have small displays, the size of which ranges from half, to an area slightly bigger than a business card. It is obvious that current Web design guidelines for large display like desktop monitors are inappropriate for handheld devices like cellphones. Furthermore, a display big enough to display a given amount of information in English (without scrolling) is not sufficient to display the same information in Chinese. This is due to the nature of Chinese font construction on electronic displays—Chinese fonts take up almost twice as much space as alphanumeric fonts to provide the same degree of readability on small displays. In conjunction with the study on e-shoppers behavior in China, we are also studying different approaches to displaying high information content Chinese Web pages in the next generation of wireless Internet access devices. Preliminary simulation studies have shown that a display size one and a half times the area of business card could provide a reasonable degree of maneuverability on a scaled down graphic browser. Our assumptions in this series of study are that future WML would support this display format and that the e-shopper would be in operating in a “goal-directed” mode, i.e., the buyer already has in mind what he wants to purchase and is unlikely to adopt a browsing or “window shopping”strategy as he would on the PC. Whether these assumptions hold true will be known after we put these simulations to test.
4. CONCLUSION
The key to the success of e-businesses is to understand what entices people to buy things online and to provide them with the means to carry out these shopping transactions. The limiting factor to online buying is not international boundaries but culture. In developing the user interface to cater to e-shoppers around the world, merely using the right metaphors and colloquial terms is no longer adequate to guarantee usability or user acceptance. E-business Web page designers must have a sound understanding of the consumer behaviors in the targeted markets. Further research to understand the psychology and expectations of online shoppers in China will not only help consumers and e-businesses but also the makers of the equipment and telecommunication infrastructure which supports these businesses.
REFERENCES
1. Zona Research. (1999) Shop Until You Drop – A Glimpse in Internet Shopping Success.
2. E. Schwartz. (1997) Webonomics. NY: Broadway Books
3. Reuters. (2000) Nokia Strengthens China Presence With WAP Deal. April 26, 2000.
4. Agence France Press. (2000) Ericsson Links With GWcom to Provide Wireless Internet Service. April 21, 2000.
5. Reuters (2000) Intrinsic Eyes Early Start in China WAP Market. April 21, 2000.
6. E-Commerce Times. (1999) 75 Percent of E-Business Destined to Fail. November 12,1999.
7. ZDNET. (2000) Shoppers of the Web Unite: User Experience and Ecommerce. February 24, 2000
8. E-Commerce Times. (1999) Message to E-Tailers: Deliver Better Service or Become E-Toast. September 13, 1999.
9. E-Commerce Times. (1999) E-Tailers Waking Up to Customer Service Needs. October 19, 1999.
10. Agence France Press. (2000) China’s E-Commerce Fails Test – And Brave Volunteers. September 7, 1999.
11. USA Today. (1999) Asia’s Culture Hampers Net commerce. February 16, 1999.
12. J. Spool. (1998) Web Site Usability: A Designer’s Guide. NY: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
13. C. W. Choo, B. Detlor and D. Turnbull. (2000) Information Seeking on the Web: An Integrated Model of Browsing and Searching. First Monday, Volume 5, No 2.
14. H. Schtte and D. Ciarlante. (1998) Consumer Behavior in Asia. London: Macmillan Press.
15. J. Nielsen. (1996) Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design. Alertbox May, 1996.
16. J. Nielsen. (1997) Changes in Web Usability Since 1994. Alertbox December, 1997.
17. J. Nielsen. (1999) The Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design. Alertbox May, 1999.
18. J. Nielsen. (1997) The Difference Between Web Design and GUI Design. Alertbox May, 1997.
Comments made
Possible Related Articles:
Latest Comments