Visual Appeal of Hotel Websites: An Exploratory Eye Tracking Study on Chinese Generation Y

ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 1

Visual Appeal of Hotel Websites: An Exploratory Eye Tracking Study on

Chinese Generation Y

Jin-Xing (Gordon) Haoa, Rui Tanga, Yan Yub,*, Nao Lic, Rob Lawd

a. BeiHang University, Chinab. Renmin University of China, China

c. Beijing Union University, Chinad. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

http://www.ifitt.org/



Outline

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical foundations and hypotheses

3. Research method

4. Study I (Survey)

5. Study II (Eye-tracking experiment)

6. Conclusions







Introduction




IntroductionV

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User Experiences & Subjective Evaluations

Content

Credibility

Trustworthiness

Usability




Introduction




Introduction

• Research questions

1. What are the preeminent characteristics of web pages to make hotel websites visually appeal to Chinese Generation Y?

2. How do members of this generation visually respond to these characteristics?




Theoretical Foundations

1. Visual Appeal in Website Evaluation

• “An immediate pleasurable subjective experience that is directed toward an object and not mediated by intervening reasoning.”

• Fits key properties of visual appeal: value positive, intrinsic, and objectified.





1. Visual Appeal in Website Evaluation

• Website evaluation literature review

– Effectiveness and efficiency of interactions

– Perceived usability

– Perceived website performance and trustworthiness

– Affective constructs

– More recently, aesthetic aspects of web design





2. Web Characteristics Influencing Visual Appeal

• Web characteristics of aesthetic objects: colors, structure, simplicity, complexity, novelty, and prototypicality.

• Web characteristics preferred by Generation Y

– large main picture

– Search feature

– little text

– images of celebrities




Hypotheses

• Web pages with pictures are more visually appealing, especially for Chinese Generation Y.

• Chinese generation Y desires positive user experiences via novel web designs.

• Chinese Generation Y is partial to entertainment.




Hypotheses

• H1: For Chinese Generation Y, web pages of hotel websites with a large main picture are more visually appealing than those without a large main picture.

• H2: For Chinese Generation Y, web pages of hotel websites with little text are more visually appealing than those with blocks of text.




Research Method1. A survey method in Study I

– to identify preeminent web characteristics preferred by Chinese Generation Y and to test related hypotheses.

– Self-reported ratings

2. An eye-tracking method in Study II

– to explore how participants look at these web characteristics.

– Self-reported ratings + Eye-tracking




Research Method

• Samples

• Top 50 hotel brands in China

– Based on Meadin Brand Index

– Two major categories: luxury (45%) and economy (55%)

– Dropped one hotel

• Screenshots of homepages

– To maintain consistency




Study I-Participants

• Objective

– to test the proposed hypotheses and to identify the preeminent web characteristics preferred by Chinese Generation Y.

• Participants

– 53 (M30/F23) Chinese Gen Y , aged 19 to 35.

– Undergraduate and MBA students.

– High levels of Internet experience,1 year+ experience




Study I-Procedure

• Procedure– Rate the webpages based on visual appeal instead of content

– 9-point Likert scale

• “1”: not at all appealing

• ”9”: very appealing

• Hotel homepage characteristics coding– Two attributes (main picture, and little text)

• With the attribute – coded as “1”

• Without the attribute – coded as “0”

– Three expert judges independently coded each page individually




Study I-Result

• Descriptive Statistics and Correlation

• Regression on Visual Appeal

Variables N Mean S.D. 1. VA 2. P 3. T

1. Visual Appeal (VA) 49 6.350 0.909 -

2. A Large Main Picture (P) 49 0.200 0.407 0.770*** -

3. Little Text (T) 49 0.370 0.446 0.714*** 0.728*** -

Note: *** p < 0.001, two-tailed tests

Predictor Dependent variable: Visual Appeal

B S.D. Beta t Sig

Intercept 6.595*** 0.251 26.244 0.000

A Large Main Picture 1.189*** 0.287 0.533 4.144 0.000

Little Text 0.664** 0.262 0.326 2.533 0.015

R2 0.643***

Adjusted R2 0.627***

Notes: N=49, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01




Study II-Participants

• Objective

– To explore the viewing behaviour of Chinese Generation Y and to answer how this generation visually responds to the identified web characteristics.

• Participants

– 20 Chinese Gen Y , aged 19 to 35.

– Generally considered sufficient to get robust eye-movement data




Study II-Settings

• Design

– 6 homepage: 3 most visually appealing websites and the 3 least visually appealing websites

– Homepages shown in random order

• Device




Study II-Settings




Study II-Procedure

Welcome and experiment introduction

Detailed instructions

Eye-tracker calibration

Homepages randomly displayed

Short survey and interview

Thanks and debriefing




Study II-Measure

• Data collected:– Participant’s visual appeal ratings

– Conducted interviews to explore the reasons for the ratings

– Eye-movement data

• Two general types of eye movements were observed: – Fixations: periods of 200 to 300 milliseconds in which eyes remain

relatively still

– Saccades: eye movements that occur between fixations

• Focused on the fixation data




Study II-Results

• Heat Maps– Indicated absolute gaze duration to reflect the accumulated time

participants spent looking at the different areas of a web page.

– Red: longest time

– Green: the least time

– Eye fixation reflects people are interested in a particular area, while eye movement represents attentional shifts.

– longer gaze duration indicates greater attention from the participant.




Study II-Results

• Heat map for the most visually appealing web pages

Orange Hotel

Kempinski HotelShangri-la Hotel




Study II-Results

• Heat map for the least visually appealing web pages

100 Inn

Shindom InnXilong Hotel




Study II-Results

• Main pictures and little text may contribute to the attention differences of the two categories of web pages and the perception differences of visual appeal. – The major differences of web pages in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 may be

observed in the large main pictures and little text.

• Chinese Generation Y prefer large pictures and little text.– confirmed by the heat maps in most visually appealing web pages

• Picture size matters– But only occurred for pictures located in top center, whereas

pictures at the bottom were generally ignored.

• All hypotheses are supported.




Conclusions

• Limitations

? student sample

representative samples and larger sample size

? Heat maps may limit the power of eye-tracking study

Quantitatively compare the eye-tracking indicators

• Future study

Investigating the relations between visual appeal of hotel websites and traditional website evaluation indicators




Conclusions

• Implications

– Understanding of visual appeal in the context of hotel websites.

– Calls for more research on visual aesthetics relevant to generation Y.

– Demonstrates that methodological triangulation is an effective way to explore new phenomena.

– Suggests that hoteliers pay more attention to generation y and visual appeal of their websites if they want to lead the future experience economy.




Thank You

Jin-Xing (Gordon) Hao, PhD

Research Center for IoT Intelligence

School of Economics and Management

BeiHang University

Beijing, China

Email: [email protected]

http://ev.buaa.edu.cn/



Education

Visual Appeal of Hotel Websites: An Exploratory Eye Tracking Study on Chinese Generation Y