Individual Consumer Differences and Design Implications for Web-Based Decision Support

This paper summarizes a study as to whether individual differences are significant factors that should affect the design of consumer decision support over the web. Our study postulates two orthogonal dimensions appear to be of relevance – Need for Cognition and Purchase Preference (ie, lifestyle vs. utilitarian), and that consumers can be sorted into one of 4 cells of a 2x2 matrix of these dimensions. The Need for Cognition is a well-researched dimension with its own instrument for measuring it, while we had to develop and validate an instrument for measuring the Purchase Preference. Applying these instruments to two study groups totaling 175 users forced us to reject the null hypothesis that individual differences are unimportant (90 % confidence), and accept that 3 matrix groupings are distinct (two of them are clustered together in our sample). The study concludes with design implications that might best support the decision support needs of each of the categories of consumers in terms of features such as linear vs. non-linear processes, more vs. less analytical information, and when to deploy stylized photos, videos, and product placements