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12th Edition of DTR Oct 2009 – Mar 2010
DIAS Technology Review |Articles

The Impact of Website Design on B2C E-Commerce Trust – An Empirical Study

Sharath Sasidharan , Suneel Maheshwari , Ganga Dhanesh
View PDF 12th Edition of DTR Oct 2009 – Mar 2010 10.65301/dias.2010.6.2.363 ↗
Sharath Sasidharan, Suneel Maheshwari, Ganga Dhanesh . (2009). The Impact of Website Design on B2C E-Commerce Trust – An Empirical Study. DIAS Technology Review, 6(2), 48-55.
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Abstract

Web designers have developed and implemented various functional techniques to enhance user trust in business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce websites; however, these efforts have proven inadequate, as consumers still do not fully trust the online environment. This “trust issue” is seen as a major impediment to the continued growth of B2C e-commerce activities.

This research examines the impact of basic design elements—specifically color and typography—on influencing user perceptions of trust in e-commerce websites. An experimental study was conducted in the context of an online banking website. The results indicate that a website with blue as the dominant design color and Times New Roman as the primary typeface engenders greater user trust than a website with green as the dominant design color and Comic Sans as the primary typeface.

Thus, beyond their aesthetic role, web designers can strategically use color and typography to explicitly enhance user trust in e-commerce website

Keywords

Business - to - Consumer (B2C), E-com m erce, Trust, Color.

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