The impact of surfer/seeker mode on the effectiveness of website characteristics

This research examines how two commercial website design variables, visual complexity and source of interactivity control, are more or less effective depending on a consumer’s purpose for visiting a website (consumer user mode). An online experiment was conducted in Singapore utilising over 70 experimental mock web pages. The authors find that goal-directed Seekers prefer a consumer-controlled interactive environment as well as a visually simple design, whereas experiential Surfers prefer marketer-controlled interactivity and a visually complex layout. This suggests that earlier research findings that supported both higher levels of interactivity and simplification of website format are in fact moderated by the user mode of the consumer. The study is also the first to empirically examine the distinction between consumer- and marketer-controlled forms of interactivity.