A Communications View of Web Page Perception

This paper develops a model to measure people’s perception of web pages based on the premise that the World Wide Web is a persuasive technology intentionally designed to change a person’s attitudes and behaviors. The model, derived from the persuasion literature, particularly appraisal theory and the affect-as-information model, assumes that feelings induced by a web page directly influence its evaluations and the behavioral intentions (BI) of users. The model also postulates that the attitude toward the web page (Awp) will mediate the effects of feelings and evaluations on BI. In two studies, it is demonstrated that this model and measures based on it provide a psychometrically valid system of eliciting user reactions to web pages. The implications of this model and a number of future research issues are discussed