Parsing the effects of web interactivity and navigability on information processing

Much research on the psychological impact of technological variables in online communication has focused on interactivity as a characteristic of Web sites and other digital media that subsumes many aspects of online information presentation. This dissertation sought to examine whether interactivity of Web sites could be disentangled from an often-mentioned but under-explicated technological variable, navigability. This dissertation underwent several steps to clarify the nature and effects of interactivity by extricating the variable from another characteristic of digital media, namely navigability. The main experiment employed a 3 (interactivity: low, medium, high) X 2 (navigability: low, high) between-subjects factorial experiment to examine unique contributions of interactivity and navigability to effects on attitudes, memory of site content, and behavioral intent, as well as the mechanisms by which potential effects occur. In order to examine these mechanisms, a scale to measure user perceptions of Web site navigability was also developed and tested. Navigability was found to have a main effect on memory of site content, such that participants in low-navigability conditions had lower memory of site content. In addition, navigability was found to have a significant indirect on attitudes toward the site via perceived navigability. Similarly, interactivity was found to have a significant indirect on attitudes toward the site through perceived interactivity. The implications of these effects for understanding the processes through which Web site structure can affect the processing of content are discussed