P/C/50. Dissertation. Website design and consumer preferences

The aim of the study is to investigate the online behaviour of the Internet users in order to find a correlation between consumer preferences and website designs. The objective is to prove a hypothesis that consumers favour context-based websites. The paper contains numerous references showing an ample amount of reviewed literature and online sources. Primary and secondary methods of research are used: the experiment was conducted presenting identical information (a car advertisement) in four quasi-commercial websites: context-based (animated) image-oriented; context-based information-oriented; content-based (unanimated) image-oriented and content based information-oriented. The questionnaires were distributed and analysed, the data showing the levels of website satisfaction, willingness to return to it and persuasion. The degree of the participants' self-monitoring ('social chameleon' tendency) was taken into account. The conclusions were made that context-based advertisements were preferred over the content-based ones. However, the paper concludes that it is necessary for web designers to consider the users' personality types. The paper ends with the list of recommendations for website designers.