Development of an Instrument to Measure Web Site Personality

A Website Personality Scale (WPS) was developed and validated through a multi-phase process. We investigated the presence of human and brand personality attributes as well as information characteristics in over one hundred websites. A strong presence of information characteristics was found, verified along dimensions of content quality, access, and time. A number of traditional human and brand personality attributes also were present. These attributes correlated with overall attitude and liking of the websites, which helped to validate the scale. There was little evidence to support the presence of interactivity, real time, and customization—characteristics believed to be central to the Internet and Web technology. The findings suggest that the WPS is both a reliable and valid measure of website personality. Introduction The growth of the Internet provides tremendous opportunities for online advertisers who want to establish an Internet presence. However, corporate websites are expensive and over 90 percent of all new websites fail primarily due to bad design (LindaCaroll.com, 2006). Understanding how website design and by extension, website personality, affects consumers’ attitudes and relationship with the company will help to improve customer relationships and prevent website failure (Palmer and Griffith 1998). Although website design characteristics have been identified (e.g., Ha and James 1998; McMillan 2002) and explored by a number of advertising and marketing scholars (e.g., Griffith and Chen 2004; Wells and Chen 2000), many of the features overlap or, in some cases, different characteristics are used to describe the same aspects of a website. Website characteristics help to determine how individuals perceive and process site content (Rodgers and Thorson