Web Site Design: Building a Cognitive Framework

Usability is rapidly becoming recognized as a crucial element in Web design. Usability addresses the question: How easy is a system for visitors to learn, to use and to remember? Usability impacts the quality of the user’s experience. How, then, does an organization contemplating an online presence choose design elements and a composition that facilitate usability thus encouraging visitors to enter a Web site as well as become repeat visitors? Cognitive psychology offers one perspective that may provide some guidance for site design based upon how individuals process information. The research presented in this paper addresses the question: What factors, if used in site design, will encourage surfers to enter a Web site? Through the development of the Web Site Preference Framework, the authors provide evidence that by making a Web site conducive to information processing preferences, Web pages can be designed that will facilitate viewers entering the site.