Kansei Concepts for eCommerce Website Design in a Bicultural Environment Recommendations for Interface Color Usage

• Published in: International Journal of Affective Engineering Vol. 14; no. 4; pp. 317 - 325
• Main Authors: MENDOZA, Jose Manuel GARCIA, MARASINGHE, Ashu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering 2015
• Subjects: e-Commerce; Interface Design; Kansei
• DOI: 10.5057/ijae.IJAE-D-13-42
• ISSN: 2187-5413

Nowadays e-Commerce web designers face the problems to create systems that are not only usable but also appealing, and to improve the consumers' interface persuasive power through engineering affective-appeal techniques. In order to contribute to meet this challenge, this study conducted two experimental studies focusing mainly on one perceptual feature, website color. Therefore, this researched took the aim to identify the most influential emotional and aesthetic Kansei factors for Japanese and Mexican young adults when evaluating sports-wear e-store interfaces and their color preferences, while correlating Kansei factors to individual colors. Results showed that the Japanese population was more critical depending on emotional arousal levels experienced on emotions such as, cheerfulness and excitement; while seeking aesthetics of consistency, dynamicity and modernity. However, only the role and impact of gender of an interface was effectively measured on the Mexican population. Colors preference similarities, with their individual Kansei interpretations, were successfully mapped for males and females. The main originality of these studies lay in the adoption of Kansei Engineering on the e-Commerce context as a systematic method to engineer consumers' emotional and affective responses and incorporate them into new guidelines of web design.