A Study of Web-designers’ Criteria for Effective Business-to-consumer (b2c) Websites Using the Repertory Grid Technique

Organizations are increasingly using websites not only to capture but also to build relationships with their desired markets. A clear understanding of how best to design effective B2C websites (for both e-commerce and eservice) is therefore vital. Despite its importance, research into the effectiveness of B2C websites remains highly fragmented and user-centric, ignoring the views of web-designers. This study therefore aims to investigate what web-designers consider as attributes of “effective” B2C websites. The relationships amongst attributes are also explored. Twenty web-designers were interviewed using the Repertory Grid Technique in order to elicit factors that they consider important when designing or developing B2C websites. Using a data reduction approach, the elicited attributes were then classified into 14 meta-categories. These meta-categories were compared to prior research. We found that although several meta-categories have been extensively covered in the literature, little attention have been paid to some meta-categories including „Establishing Website Identity‟; „Categorization of Information‟; „Presentation of Information‟; „Advertisements, Pop-Ups and Animation”; and “Headlines”. The inductive approach also permitted the elicitation of the relationships among these meta-categories, giving us a richer understanding of how different website characteristics influence each other. Implications and future research are discussed.