Does Our Web Site Stress You Out? Information Foraging and the Psychophysiology of Online Navigation

Online navigation is often considered to be an enjoyable activity, and users often use lighthearted terms about that activity, such as “surfing” and “cruising” the Web. Unfortunately, there is indeed a dark side to online navigation, with many users becoming lost among unfamiliar terms and suffering long delays. In this research-in-progress study we describe our experimental examination of two promising antecedents of ease of use (information scent and delay), and two consequences of ease of use (stress and non-adoption behavior). We also consider impact of stress on non-adoption behavior. We manipulate information scent and delay, and measure ease of use and stress both in the traditional manner (using questionnaires) and in a more objective manner (stress by physiological measurement and ease of use by the number of steps required). Adoption is also measured objectively, by recording participants’ actual switching behavior.