I'm Losing Patience with your Site: The Impact of Information Scent and Time Constraints on Effort, Performance, and Attitudes

As competition increases in the online world, website owners will investigate ways in which they can attract more users. Additionally, many consumers suffer ever-increasing time limitations when browsing for a particular item on a website. Users can become frustrated and stressed when they are unable to find those items due to poor information scent, or semantic cues that are meant to lead to their goal. This paper presents and tests a theoretical model to predict how information scent can reduce the amount of stress that consumers experience when seeking information under time constraints. The study also demonstrates the relationships between information scent, time constraints, stress, performance and attitudes toward the website. Results indicate that while high information scent is an important design goal, scent can only be assessed by taking the user’s task into account.