Influence of Website Characteristics on Initial Trust in M

IN DEGREE PROJECT MEDIA TECHNOLOGY,SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

, STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2021

Influence of Website Characteristics on Initial Trust in M-Commerce for Young Consumers

ELIN FORSBERG

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Abstract

Lack of trust is argued to be one of the key reasons behind buyers’ reluctance to purchase online.

In mobile commerce (m-commerce), gaining initial trust upon the first visit from prospective

consumers highly depends on the design of the website. However, the number of qualitative

empirical studies investigating what and how website characteristics affect initial trust in an

unfamiliar m-commerce website remains limited. The aim of this thesis was thus to gain a

deeper understanding of the influence of website characteristics on initial consumer trust in a

m-commerce website, to provide insights for designers. An exploratory case study of the mobile

version of an e-vendor’s website was conducted and qualitatively examined through Think-

Aloud sessions and semi-structured interviews. By thematically analyzing the data, the follow-

ing website characteristics were identified as influencing initial trust in an unknown m-com-

merce website: purposeful and clear visual design, internal design consistency, mobile adapta-

tion and reading experience, content quality, similarity and expectations, social proof and ex-

ternal validation. Based on the insights, the study further provides recommendations to practi-

tioners on how to design trustworthy m-commerce websites, both as support in the design pro-

cess and for evaluation purposes.

Sammanfattning

Brist på förtroende anses vara en av de viktigaste orsakerna till att köpare tvekar att handla

online. Att få initialt förtroende vid potentiella konsumenters första besök inom mobil handel

(m-commerce) beror mycket på webbplatsens design. Antalet kvalitativa empiriska studier som

undersöker vad och hur webbplatsens egenskaper påverkar initialt förtroende för en okänd m-

handelswebbplats är dock fortfarande begränsat. Syftet med denna avhandling var således att

få en djupare förståelse för hur webbplatsens egenskaper påverkar konsumenternas initiala för-

troende för en mobil handelswebbplats, för att ge insikter till designers. En undersökande fall-

studie av mobilversionen av en e-handlares webbplats genomfördes och undersöktes kvalitativt

genom Think-Aloud-sessioner och halvstrukturerade intervjuer. Genom att tematiskt analysera

den insamlade datan identifierades följande webbplatsegenskaper att påverka initialt förtroende

för en okänd mobil handelswebbplats: målmedveten och tydlig visuell design, internt konse-

kvent design, mobilanpassning och läsupplevelse, innehållskvalitet, likhet och förväntningar,

socialt bevis och extern validering. Baserat på insikterna ger studien rekommendationer till de-

signers om hur man kan utforma pålitliga m-handelswebbplatser, både som stöd i designpro-

cessen och för utvärdering.

Influence of Website Characteristics on Initial Trust in M-Commerce for Young Consumers

Elin Forsberg

KTH Royal Institute of

Technology

Stockholm, Sweden

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Lack of trust is argued to be one of the key reasons behind

buyers’ reluctance to purchase online. In mobile commerce

(m-commerce), gaining initial trust upon the first visit from

prospective consumers highly depends on the design of the

website. However, the number of qualitative empirical

studies investigating what and how website characteristics

affect initial trust in an unfamiliar m-commerce website

remains limited. The aim of this thesis was thus to gain a

deeper understanding of the influence of website character-

istics on initial consumer trust in a m-commerce website, to

provide insights for designers. An exploratory case study of

the mobile version of an e-vendor’s website was conducted

and qualitatively examined through Think-Aloud sessions

and semi-structured interviews. By thematically analyzing

the data, the following website characteristics were identi-

fied as influencing initial trust in an unknown m-commerce

website: purposeful and clear visual design, internal design

consistency, mobile adaptation and reading experience,

content quality, similarity and expectations, social proof

and external validation. Based on the insights, the study

further provides recommendations to practitioners on how

to design trustworthy m-commerce websites, both as sup-

port in the design process and for evaluation purposes.

Author Keywords

M-commerce; Initial Trust; Website Characteristics; Case

Study; Online Consumer Trust: User Interface Design; User

Experience; Usability.

CSS Concepts

• Human-centered computing~Human computer interaction

(HCI); User studies;

INTRODUCTION With the increasing popularity of using mobile devices,

mobile commerce (m-commerce) has become one of the

most popular channels for shopping [38]. M-commerce is

associated with advantages such as instantaneity, ubiquity,

personalization, identification and allows for shopping on

the go [32]. On the other hand, m-commerce also suffers

from disadvantages such as small screen sizes and limita-

tions of displaying information [32]. In contrast to physical

shopping, online consumers need to trust the e-vendor and

the products without any physical interaction, and in the

digital systems providing the services [18]. That entails

overcoming possible risks such as identity theft, credit-card

fraud and unfulfilled product promises [34]. Lack of trust is

argued to be one of the key reasons behind buyers’ reluc-

tance to purchase online [24] and in m-commerce, trust is

considered to be a critical factor in generating positive

purchase intentions [7].

Online users’ first impression about the e-vendor is formu-

lated through the vendor’s website, and the first purchase

intention is dependent on the vendor’s abilities to build

potential consumers’ initial trust, that is trust in an unfamil-

iar party [26], which is formed between a user and an or-

ganization or system when the user has no previous

knowledge or experience with it. Therefore, for e-vendors

to attract new customers, they need to establish initial trust

with prospective customers. While branding and market

reputation has shown to affect initial trust in an e-

vendor [10, 17], gaining trust from mobile customers upon

their first visit highly relies on the design of the website

[22]. Therefore, there is a need for designers of m-

commerce websites to have practical guidelines on how to

design for gaining prospective consumers’ initial trust.

While studies have examined a variety of topics on trust in

m-commerce [22, 23, 28, 35] including impact of aesthet-

ics [22], quality and satisfaction [35], as well as security,

design and content [28], the number of qualitative empirical

studies investigating what and how website characteristics

affect initial trust in an unfamiliar m-commerce website

remains limited.

To further investigate and gain a deeper understanding of

how website characteristics can influence initial consumer

trust and perceived trustworthiness in the context of an

unknown m-commerce website, an exploratory case study

approach is applied using qualitative research methods.

This enables us to understand prospective customers’ be-

haviour, thoughts, needs and concerns and enriches the

previous research on the topic by adding aspects of how and

why website characteristics affect initial trust in m-

commerce.

Purpose and Research Questions

This thesis aims to investigate what, and how, website

characteristics, e.g., structure, interface design elements and

content [11], affect initial consumer trust in a m-commerce

website, and to unveil aspects in the website design where

there is a possibility of securing or, on the contrary, losing

the prospective consumer’s trust. By using an exploratory

case study approach, the thesis aims to gain in-depth in-

sights about what aspects affect the initial trust of a m-

commerce website from the perspective of prospective

consumers, which in turn can be used as practical guide-

lines by designers.

The research questions to be explored are:

1. What website characteristics affect the initial trust

of a m-commerce website?

2. How do website characteristics affect the per-

ceived trustworthiness?

3. What website characteristics should be considered

by designers when developing a m-commerce web-

site for it to be perceived as trustworthy?

To answer the research questions, the mobile version of an

e-commerce website is examined (see Image 1).

Image 1 - The landing page of the examined e-commerce web-

site

Limitations

The participants in the study are limited to young adults

with high digital maturity, as their experience with mobile

devices might affect the results of the study and because

they have shown to have an enhanced acceptance of and

willingness to use the m-commerce medium [7].

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Below, concepts from the field of online trust are intro-

duced. They include literature on trust in an online context,

initial trust and the website's role in trust formation in an

online and m-commerce context.

Trust in the online context

The concept of trust is widely studied over several different

disciplines, where each discipline has its own understanding

of the concept and ways to operationalize it [37]. However,

despite the numerous interpretations of trust, the general

view is that there must exist two actors in a trusting rela-

tionship to develop trust, namely a trustor and a trustee, and

that trust only exists in a risky or uncertain situation where

vulnerability is present [2]. One risky or uncertain situation

is in an online purchase context, where consumers share

privacy information and complete transactions with an e-

vendor [21]. In that context, consumers face financial,

product, delivery and privacy risks such as misuse of credit

card information, receiving defective or wrong products,

issues with shipping and returning of products and private

information being sold or misused [30]. Online trust can

then be described as the connection that happens between a

user or customer and a business through their website,

where the user believes that the website and its business is

reliable [4].

Several studies have examined online consumer trust in the

context of e-commerce [5, 9, 16, 19] and found factors that

affect online consumer trust towards an e-vendor. Some of

the most common factors include social presence (the feel-

ing of being able to communicate), website quality and user

interface, quality of product and service information, and

the website’s reputation and brand [19].

Initial trust

Initial trust can be defined as “trust in an unfamiliar party”

[26], and is formed between a user and an organization or

system when the user has no previous knowledge or experi-

ence with it. While trust develops over time and is affected

by different aspects, initial trust is instead instant and based

on the first visit without prior brand awareness. When po-

tential consumers enter an e-commerce website they imme-

diately make judgments and perceptions of uncertainty and

risks that determine if they will continue to use the site or

not [13]. Consequently, understanding how initial trust is

formed is important for ensuring continued usage and trust

[39].

Initial trust formation has been found to be influenced by

three bases of trust, namely cognition trust base, institution

trust base and personality trust base [17, 19, 21]. They are

all based on lack of previous experiences and knowledge

with an unfamiliar trustee [17]. Cognition based trust is a

result of first impressions and stereotypes, built on rapid

and cognitive cues [17], where for example a cognitive

familiarity is established based on experiences with similar

systems in other contexts [21]. Institution based trust in-

stead assumes that trust is built on signs of normality,

where trust is built when the trustee fits the common stand-

ard of the context [21]. Lastly, personality based trust relies

on the trustor’s general tendency to be willing to trust a

trustee, and is formed by the trustor’s personal experiences

[17].

Trusting beliefs - benevolence, ability and integrity

Trusting beliefs are of importance when studying the con-

structs of initial online trust as it has been shown to affect

the initial trust attitude toward e-vendors [17] and refers to

the trustor’s perception of whether the trustee has the at-

tributes to be trusted [13, 21, 33]. Trusting beliefs can be

divided into the three dimensions of benevolence, ability

and integrity [25]. Benevolence is the extent to which the

trustor believes that the trustee wants to do good things and

cares about the trustor’s welfare. Ability refers to the skills

and competencies of the trustee and integrity is the trustor’s

perception that the trustee will be honest and adhere to an

acceptable set of principles, such as honesty and keeping

promises [25]. If ability, benevolence or integrity is ques-

tionable the user’s trust has shown to decrease [33].

Website design and initial trust in online commerce

Perceived usefulness, perceived security, perceived privacy

and perceived good reputation have been found to be im-

portant for initial consumer trust in online commerce [10,

20]. Perceived privacy regards how consumers believe that

the e-vendor takes care of their personal information,

whereas perceived security refers to how secure consumers

feel in transacting with the e-vendor.

Studies have found that following principles of good user

experience design for creating user-friendly and usable

websites is important for the formation of trust [27, 34]. An

online retailer’s website is the primary communicator be-

tween the transacting parties, and the design of the website

has shown to affect consumer’s initial trust in e-commerce

[13, 15]. For example, Ang and Lee state that “If the web

site does not lead the consumer to believe that the merchant

is trustworthy, no purchase decision will result” [1] (p.3).

Hence, a focus on web interface design by online merchants

can enhance the trustworthiness to potential online custom-

ers.

Several website design dimensions have shown to influence

consumer trust in e-vendors such as graphic design, struc-

ture design, content design and social cue design [15, 34,

37]. Graphic design, or visual design [34], refers to the

overall visual design of the website, for example layout,

colours, typography, font size and photographs, while struc-

ture design entails the overall organization and findability

of displayed information whose success is determined by,

for example, good usability [34, 37]. Content design, on the

other hand, deals with textual or graphical informational

elements on the website as well as the use of comprehen-

sive and correct information. Lastly, social-cue design re-

fers to the communication possibilities and signs of repre-

sentation provided by photographs and names of customer

service agents and contact opportunities [34, 37].

Based on the four mentioned design dimensions, [34] em-

pirically studied the content of trustful and distrustful user

experiences on the web to identify website characteristics

that affect online trust, and found a fifth dimension of per-

sonal and social proof, which focuses on recommendations

from people we know and on user ratings and reviews. A

common way to integrate customer reviews is to use a

third-party review system, for example Trustpilot1.

Additionally, the presence of trust assurances has been

found to influence initial consumer trust in online com-

merce [20]. These include for example general trust assur-

ances which are usually provided by third-party organiza-

tions and specific trust assurances such as warranty and

return policy, product quality guarantee, and delivery on

time [20]. Internally provided privacy/security policies and

vendor-specific guarantees have been found to be as effec-

tive as those from third parties [15].

M-Commerce and initial trust

As mobile devices have small screens and limitations in

displaying information, research has shown that the user

interface design is an important determinant of a user's

initial trust in a m-commerce system [12, 22, 23, 32]. A

well-designed user interface facilitates navigation and inter-

activity and reduces the perceived complexity of the system

[22]. Therefore, mobile service providers need to present

users with a clear layout, powerful navigation and visually

appealing interface in order to gain prospective consumers’

trust [12]. Additionally, for a m-commerce website to gain

initial consumer trust it has been shown that design aesthet-

ics such as colours, shapes, font and animations, plays a

role, since it meets customers' need for enjoyment and

arousal and positively affects users’ impression of the web-

site [22].

Usability aspects have also shown to influence initial trust

in m-commerce, where positive experiences of perceived

ease-of-use (the feeling that the usage of the m-

commerce website is free of effort) and perceived useful-

ness (the degree of believing the m-commerce website is

useful) positively affects the perceived trustworthiness of

the m-commerce website [22, 23, 32]. Scholars have also

identified information quality, such as accurate, complete

and relevant information [12, 28], as well as security as-

pects [28], such as how the e-vendor communicates the

safety or protection in personal privacy and transaction data

[23], to have effect on trust in m-commerce.

METHOD

The following section describes the methods for data col-

lection and data analysis used to answer the research ques-

tions. An exploratory case study approach was applied and

the qualitative methods for data collection include conduct-

ing task-driven think-aloud sessions, followed by semi-

structured interviews. Thematic analysis was employed to

analyze the collected data.

Methodological approach

To explore and gain in-depth insights about the initial con-

sumer trust in the context of m-commerce, an exploratory

case study was applied [3]. Further, qualitative methods

were used for the exploratory case study, since the thesis

1 https://se.trustpilot.com

https://se.trustpilot.com/

aimed to gain a deeper understanding of participants’ per-

ceptions and thoughts [6].

Study settings

The mobile version of an e-commerce website (see Image

1), was chosen as the setting of the study. The e-vendor has

a sustainability focus as they collect and sell other e-

vendor’s returned and/or reclaimed goods. Sustainable

consumption is becoming more important and when an

online retailer acts as a retailer of returned or already used

goods, it is necessary for the success of the e-vendor that

the website is perceived as trustworthy by prospective con-

sumers. Since this thesis aimed to investigate initial trust

where prospective consumers are not familiar with the e-

vendor, the selected m-commerce website was chosen

based on the fact that it is not a well known brand to people.

Additionally, it offers a variety of products and is repre-

sentative of a m-commerce website with its common fea-

tures.

Participants

The inclusion criteria for participation was that the partici-

pants never had heard of or visited the website to ensure

that the data collected from the study would be of their

initial trust, and to avoid bias based on possible brand

awareness. For qualitative evaluations, the general guide-

line is to have 5-8 participants [31]. Therefore, through

social media and an online time booking platform, 6 partic-

ipants were recruited for the study. The participants were

friends of friends to the author, and all had different back-

grounds varying from kindergarten teacher to physiothera-

pist and economics student. As the study is limited to focus

on young adults, the ages ranged between 24-27 and all

participants were Swedish.

Methods for data collection

Since trust and perceived trustworthiness are abstract con-

cepts, the assessment and understanding of them are based

on individuals’ subjective perceptions [13]. Therefore, as

mentioned, a qualitative methodological approach was

chosen for data collection, namely task-driven think-aloud

sessions followed by semi-structured interviews (see Table

1). Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, all data was col-

lected remotely using Zoom. The participants got to enter

Zoom’s mobile application and share their screen. All

think-aloud sessions and semi-structured interviews were

recorded for the purpose of data analysis.

Task-driven think aloud

To be able to observe and understand how prospective

consumers interact with- and experience the m-commerce

website a think aloud test was conducted with each partici-

pant. First, the participants got a brief introduction to the

study’ aim, where they were informed that the purpose of

the study was to investigate initial trust in an unfamiliar e-

vendor, thus ensuring the focus of the study throughout the

session. Each participant was then given a scenario and a

set of tasks to complete on the website. The tasks were

chosen to make the participants ‘discover’ the website and

Participant Age Interview

duration (h:mm)

Number of

transcribed words

Participant A 27 1:07 2651

Participant B 25 0:54 2643

Participant C 24 1:06 2374

Participant D 27 0:57 1791

Participant E 25 0:53 2010

Participant F 26 1:05 2566

Table 1 - Data collection details per participant

use it as if they were to purchase something. The partici-

pants were asked to enter the website through a link sent in

Zoom’s chat function.

During the test, the participants were instructed to think out

loud about what they saw, what they expected and how they

felt about the interactions, which is a common approach for

usability testing when the goal is to understand the partici-

pants’ behaviours, goals, thoughts and motivations [36].

Additionally, follow up questions were asked when needed

to make sure that the participants explained their thoughts

out loud throughout the session.

Semi-structured interviews

Interviewing is the most common format of data collection

in qualitative research and the most significant source for

obtaining case study information [14]. Therefore, as the

second part of the data collection, a semi-structured inter-

view was held with each participant after their respective

think-aloud sessions. Having semi-structured interviews

allowed for asking follow up questions and exploring the

participants’ answers in more depth. The semi-structured

interviews followed a pre-set interview guide and questions

about the participants’ experience of the website and how

and why it affected the perceived trustworthiness were

asked, as well as more general questions about initial trust

in an unknown e-vendor and in the mobile context. Addi-

tionally, some of the interview questions were inspired by a

study on measuring online trust in websites by [11].

Pilot study

To ensure the quality of the tasks and interview questions a

pilot study was conducted with two participants. The pilot

study revealed that some questions were redundant and that

some of the tasks were too specific. This resulted in chang-

es to the interview guide to its final form.

Method for data analysis

To analyze and identify patterns in the qualitative data from

the Think-Alouds and semi-structured interviews, thematic

analysis (TA) [8] was applied. The total time of the record-

ings was 5h and 52 min, which were transcribed verbatim

into 14 035 words (see Table 1 for details). The data was

then processed, using the qualitative method data analysis

software Maxqda2, by identifying, analyzing and interpret-

ing patterns into themes [6] (see Image 2). The most com-

monly mentioned words, experiences and topics relevant to

the research questions were grouped together. The TA was

conducted iteratively and the collected data was read

through multiple times and coded following the guide sug-

gested by [29].

Image 2 - Print Screen of MAXQDA 2020 software during

coding process

RESULTS

In this section, the results of the think aloud tests, inter-

views and the conducted thematic analysis is presented (see

Table 1 for details). Since the study was conducted in Swe-

dish, all quotes have been translated into English.

Themes

Purposeful and clear visual design

Participants' first impressions of the website were related to

the visual design, where combinations of visual elements,

images and illustrations, typography and colour were shown

to influence the participant’s initial trust in the e-vendor.

During the think-aloud tasks, participants reacted to the fact

that the website felt cluttered in combination with words

like “sceptical”, “messy”, “unprofessional”, explaining

that the multiple combinations of colours, fonts, images,

illustrations and mixed sizes of elements were confusing

and overwhelming, which affected how trustworthy the

website felt at a first glance.

“The combination of many strong colours and different fonts just gave a messy impression, and that there is such a mix between real photos and

illustrated characters, it's like they want to include as much as possible in

one place.” (Participant B)

During the interviews, when asked about how the messy

impression influenced their perceived trustworthiness of the

website, participants stated that the visual design of the

website reflects what the retailer wants to convey, and that

a cluttered page can confuse and distract, as well as give the

impression of that the e-vendor hasn’t put time into the

2 https://www.maxqda.com

design. They expressed diverging opinions regarding aes-

thetics of the visual design, where some of the participants

liked the overall look of the interface and the choice of

colours, describing them as “calm” and “earthy”, while

others didn’t personally like the chosen colours and fonts.

However, despite the diverging opinions, participants

stressed that generally, aesthetics can give a feeling that

time is put into the design which in turn can induce a trust-

worthy feeling.

When discussing the perceived aesthetics in connection to

trustworthiness, the participants expressed that while a

website that is perceived as aesthetically pleasing and

“looks good” could enhance a feeling of craftsmanship, the

most important aspect for initial trust was that the visual

elements were selected for a purpose.

“The messy impression and these illustrations, I mean It feels a bit quirky

and unprofessional, how can I trust it as an online store if it feels like

something else?” (Participant C)

Participants expressed that they did not, at first, understand

what kind of website it was based on the choice of illustrat-

ed figures and font in the landing page (see Image 1), and

that it reminded them of other kinds of online services such

as non-profit organizations. This induced a confusing and

unprofessional feeling, which in turn affected trustworthi-

ness as an online store.

Similarly, colour combinations and associations showed to

influence the participants’ initial trust in the e-vendor. As-

sociations of the colours on the website were mentioned by

the majority of the participants and mostly regarded specific

colours, like the green colour being associated with sustain-

ability and climate, and that it was positive that the selected

colours on the website were in line with the type of busi-

ness and brand.

Internal design consistency

Internal consistency, i.e., keeping the same design through-

out the website, was a common source of discussion during

the interviews.

“Even though I didn’t like the colour choice of bright pink in some head-

lines and banners, I liked that it showed up in several pages. It made me feel as if they were consistent in their design choices and that someone is

working on the website.” (Participant D)

When completing tasks on the website, all participants

mentioned that recurring visual elements and usage of col-

ours and fonts made a positive impression on them. This

was discussed as a sign of the website being an entity with

well thought out design and that someone had put time into

the visual design of the website, which positively affected

the perceived trustworthiness. Similarly, when participants

noticed lack of internal consistency it negatively affected

the perceived trustworthiness as it disrupted the experience

and didn’t live up to participants' consistency expectations.

For example, when some of the participants discovered the

“About us” and “Contact Us” pages, they noticed that the

different pages used e.g., different fonts, font sizes, head-

lines and line-height, which made them insecure about the

https://www.maxqda.com/

e-vendor and induced a feeling that “the website seems to

be under construction”.

Similarity and expectations

A common theme among the participants was that the

trustworthiness of the website was affected by how similar

it was to other webshops, i.e. how much the overall design

met their expectations based on prior experiences with

similar online shops. Participants stressed that if their ex-

pectations are not met, their initial trust in the e-vendor is

affected.

“I expect it to look and behave like similar online shops, and when it

doesn’t it can give me a sceptical feeling, like something is wrong” (Partic-

ipant A)

During the interviews participants mentioned that an e-

vendor was perceived to be more trustworthy if the design

of the website was similar to other e-vendor’s of the same

category. During the think-aloud tasks, participants reacted

to the fact that the overall look and structure of the website

felt similar to shops like “Bauhaus” or “for example com-

panies like Mediamarkt or Elgiganten”. Expectations re-

garded the visual appearance, element placements, infor-

mation, interactions and functionalities. For example, par-

ticipants reacted to the filtering function not working as

they expected it to, where they all commented on the limita-

tion of the price filter where they could only choose be-

tween two, very broad, price spans. They expressed that for

a webshop to feel trustworthy they expect the filtering to

work like it usually does, where you for example can set

your own price span. One participant specifically men-

tioned that “It feels as if they have never seen a filtering

function on an e-commerce website before”. Another ex-

ample was during the checkout process, where participants

mentioned that it deviated from what they normally would

have been encountered with, where information about the

shipping and taxes was present in the shopping cart (see

Image 3), confusing the participants if they were at check-

out or if they were supposed to know about details in ship-

ping costs and VAT already in the shopping cart. As a re-

sult, participants discussed whether the e-vendor targeted

individuals or other companies since the checkout process

was perceived as “unnecessarily complicated”, which in

turn negatively affected the trustworthiness of the website.

Mobile adaptation

One of the most discussed themes for the initial trust crea-

tion among the participants was the mobile adaptation on

the website in terms of structure, navigation and product

findability, which are connected to usability aspects such as

ease-of-use and usefulness, mentioned by [22, 23, 32].

“It was not a sloppy job that you can get from certain sites where it feels very unserious at once. Without a clear structure, like when you can’t see

categories and clear division of elements and products and a clear menu, I

don’t trust those sites.” (Participant D)

Image 3 - A screenshot of the shopping cart

During interviews, participants discussed that lack of struc-

ture and easy navigation can yield an unserious impression,

and thus affect the trustworthiness of the e-vendor and the

website negatively. Easy navigation was highlighted as

especially important for a majority of the participants since

they want online shopping, especially when using a mobile

device, to be simple. They stated that finding relevant prod-

ucts and going through the purchase steps should not take

up unnecessary time or effort. Participants mentioned that

an intuitive and clear structure of elements, pages and in-

formation positively influenced the trustworthiness of the

website since it indicated that the company had put time

into the design and provided necessary functionalities to be

able to interact with the site properly. For example, partici-

pants appreciated the product categories and that the e-

vendor “had made sure that the website works on mobile”,

like the use of a hamburger menu3. In contrast, when the

mobile adaptation and usability failed, where in some pages

the website moved sideways when scrolling, some partici-

pants reacted and stated that it felt as if the e-vendor could

have tried a bit harder with the mobile adaptation and that it

felt unprofessional.

During the think-aloud tasks, different aspects of navigation

on the website were common, such as expectations and

simplicity. Overall, participants mentioned that the naviga-

tion “was good and easy to understand” and participants

mentioned that it was positive that the website provided

them with multiple ways of finding a product they were

looking for, for example, from the menu, through bread-

crumbs, category shortcuts and through the search function-

ality. However, when the navigation failed to live up to the

3 What Is a Hamburger Menu Button? (howtogeek.com)

https://www.howtogeek.com/720214/what-is-a-hamburger-menu-button/

participants’ expectations, for example when one of the

participants didn’t find the way to go back to the landing

page from the checkout page, they reacted with that it made

them frustrated and that the website felt unprofessional.

They stated that if the navigation doesn’t work properly

they can’t be sure that the skills and competencies of the e-

vendor can be trusted, thus doubting the e-vendor’s ability

[25].

Content quality and reading experience

All participants mentioned content quality being important

for their trust formation, such as information findability and

accuracy, hierarchy and relevance of the information pro-

vided, as well as the reading experience. Participants

stressed that easily finding the information they are looking

for is crucial for how trustworthy the e-vendor is. That

included finding information about the company, a specific

product and contact possibilities.

“I want easily findable information, it could have made me leave the page

and go to someone else because I don’t want to look for so long. If I can’t find the information I want, like information about the company, product

or in this case what “We Reuse” even means I feel like, can I really trust

this?” (Participant B)

The use- and quality of product images and information

also influenced how trustworthy the website seemed. The

participants reacted to product images having varied resolu-

tion, that the website did not support zooming in on details

and that most products only had one image of the product

from one angle, which made it difficult to determine what

the product actually looked like. During interviews, they

mentioned that image quality is important when shopping

online since it is the only way to decide the ‘look and feel’

of the product. Correct and detailed product information

was according to participants a sign of someone taking care

of the website, continuously updating the information and

making sure its correctness, which they mentioned was

important for their initial trust in the e-vendor. When, for

example, product information was incorrect or not detailed

enough, it resulted in a negative experience that influenced

participants' perceived trustworthiness. For example, one of

the participants noticed that the product information of a

laptop was wrong, since the image of the laptop didn’t seem

to correspond to the product name, which made him very

sceptical. The information being wrong made him suspect

that more things could be wrong in the website and the trust

in the e-vendor was immediately affected.

“Since the image was wrong, I started questioning everything else and

became sceptical .” (Participant C)

During the think-aloud sessions, participants reacted to that

it was difficult to find information about the e-vendor, and

once found, the text amount was perceived as “overwhelm-

ing” and that it felt“ more like an essay than a website”

(see Image 4).

Image 4 - A screenshot of the “About Us” page

How the information on the website was presented was a

common discussion point during interviews. Here, the read-

ing experience was discussed, which was partly affected by

how easy the content was to read. Participants mentioned

visual aspects such as the choice of typography/font, text

size, amount of text, structural aspects such as lack of head-

lines and paragraphs, but also copy, i.e. the writing style

and typos as affecting the reading experience.

Regarding the writing style, some participants mentioned

that a “too relaxed” or “unserious” type of writing could

negatively affect their trust in the e-vendor in places such as

the contact page, as it was perceived as inappropriate and

unprofessional when they “might have important ques-

tions”. As an example, participants reacted to the language

used in the “Contact Us” page where sentences such as “I

Just Called to Say…?” and “Ping a signal” (Swedish:

“Plinga en signal”) was perceived as informal and unseri-

ous. Additionally, typos occurring in some places caused

participants to react and induced a sceptical feeling.

When asked about how the reading experience affected the

perceived trustworthiness of the website, participants

stressed the importance of information hierarchy and rele-

vance, only highlighting the important sections or head-

lines, as well as using a professional language without ty-

pos. This was connected to their feeling that e-vendor had

made an effort to make it understandable and mobile friend-

ly.

Social proof

All participants mentioned that proper information about

the company and who is behind it is important for their trust

formation, especially when it concerns an unfamiliar e-

vendor and when the overall impression of the website

doesn’t yield a totally trustworthy feeling.

“As a new, small and not so established company I would expect them to present themselves more properly, like their personnel or the founders and

links to social media. That would increase their trustworthiness. Otherwise

it is very anonymous. “ (Participant A)

The participants mentioned that the lack of social cues on

the website, such as signs of representation provided by

photographs and names of customer service agents, nega-

tively affected the trustworthiness and that presenting the

staff or founders “would have increased the credibility of

the website”. Participants stressed that they want to know

that someone would be held accountable in case something

would go wrong with, for example, an order or payment,

and that there is a human behind the business, reducing the

feeling of the webshop being a scam.

“When I saw that they had physical shops, it kind of made up for the

feeling that it was very anonymous” (Participant C)

All participants mentioned that they were positively sur-

prised when they found out that the company also has phys-

ical stores, as they mentioned it to make up for the other-

wise anonymous feeling on the website and that it induced a

more trustworthy feeling as they then would have the op-

portunity to go to the store if something would go wrong

with the purchase. This indicates that the website itself did

not induce a fully trustworthy feeling among the partici-

pants and that they needed more proof that someone would

be held accountable. Additionally, participants discussed

that they would only have searched for social proof on the

website if they had been unsure or sceptical to begin with,

and that then being able to see that there are people behind

the company would reduce that feeling. Another common

reaction was the perception of how big the company was,

where the participants noted that if the company is per-

ceived as big and established it is not as important with

social cues on the website as if the e-vendor is perceived as

small and new on the market.

External validation

Another aspect discussed, regarding what the most im-

portant thing for a m-commerce website to gain initial trust

from the participants, was to be able to validate that the e-

vendor is serious through third party integrations of cus-

tomer reviews (e.g. Trustpilot) and external payment meth-

ods (e.g. Klarna).

“I reacted to the fact that they had Trustpilot, and that they use Klarna. It is a service that I can trust, and that I can read what others have experienced

when using this page. That makes me feel that I could purchase some-

thing” (Participant F)

Participants especially mentioned that looking at other,

known websites for confirmation that the e-vendor is legit

and credible is of high importance when the e-vendor is

unknown, and especially when the overall design of the

website was not perceived as trustworthy. This was de-

scribed as seeking confirmation that an e-vendor has the

skills and competencies, i.e. the ability [25], needed to

handle a payment and deliver the ordered products in high

quality and that previous customers have experienced that

the e-vendor is honest and keeps promises, i.e. the integrity

[25]. All participants encountered these integrations late in

their exploration of the website, and some reacted and stat-

ed that “Oh I wish I had seen this earlier” and “that they

use Klarna makes it a bit more credible”.

Additionally, during the interviews participants stressed

that they never fully trust information provided by the e-

vendor themselves, as “they could write just about any-

thing”, and that it, therefore, is important to be able to con-

firm from elsewhere that the e-vendor can be trusted. In the

context of the case study website, however, this topic re-

vealed some contradictory results where a few participants

mentioned that even though external reviews and an exter-

nal payment method was integrated on the website, they

would still want to look up if, for example, Klarna has a

deal with the company or not, and enter Trustpilot’s website

to see if the reviews really seem genuine. They argued that

this had to do with their initial sceptical impression they got

from the e-vendor upon the first visit based on their general

feeling of the design of the website.

Overall experience and initial trust

This section describes the more general and higher level

findings from the think-aloud sessions and semi-structured

interviews where more general aspects of initial trust in m-

commerce were discussed. During the semi-structured in-

terviews participants discussed what usually gives them a

trustworthy impression in a m-commerce website.

“The most important thing for an e-vendor to feel trustworthy is the vibe

that the website gives when you enter it” (Participant C)

All participants discussed the importance of the overall

feeling and first impression of the website in relation to

initial trust in an unfamiliar e-vendor. The overall feeling of

a professional m-commerce website was based on aspects

such as functioning navigation, first impression of visual

design and layout, as well as information quality. Partici-

pants mentioned that the feeling of an unprofessional web-

site usually made them sceptical that the e-vendor would

manage to, for example, process and ship an order or an-

swer questions quickly. Additionally, the overall experience

with- and feeling of the website determined how partici-

pants felt about other aspects, such as looking up reviews:

“My experience of the whole site is very important and determines if I even want to take the time to, for example, check out reviews and so on if I

would feel the need to.” (Participant A)

Participants discussed how the e-vendor should clearly

describe themselves and their business concept as soon as

possible on the website, as it would enable the participants

to get to know the e-vendor before continuing on the web-

site. However, a feeling of “buy buy buy”, as one partici-

pant put it, would instead induce a feeling of an e-vendor

who doesn’t care about their customers and only wants to

force on deals and products, which can be compared to the

concept of benevolence that has previously shown to affect

initial trust in online commerce [25].

DISCUSSION

This section will explore the findings and discuss them in

relation to previous studies on the topic, as well as answer

the three research questions asked in this thesis.

Influence of website characteristics on initial trust

Overall, the results of this study attests to previous studies

of the importance of website design and the user interface

in enhancing user’s initial trust in a m-commerce system

[12, 22, 32]. The results indicate that prospective consum-

ers immediately make up judgements and perceptions of

uncertainty and risks in their first impression of the m-

commerce website and that if the first impression of the

landing page does not immediately induce a trustworthy

feeling, prospective consumers might leave the website

even before exploring it further.

The first question asked was:

What website characteristics affect the initial trust of a m-

commerce website?

The results from this study found 7 themes regarding what

website characteristics influence prospective consumer’s

initial trust in an unfamiliar e-vendor’s website: Purposeful

and clear visual design, Internal design consistency, Simi-

larity and expectations, Mobile adaptation, Content quality

and reading experience, Social proof and External valida-

tion. They include aspects found by scholars in the context

of e-commerce such as visual, structural, content, social-

cue and social proof related website characteristics [15, 34,

37] as well as perceived security [10, 20, 28]. However, this

thesis contributes to previous research on the topic by add-

ing aspects of design consistency, similarity and expecta-

tions, mobile adaptation, reading experience and the impact

of the overall impression of the website’s design. Addition-

ally, in contrast to previous research the results also suggest

how and why these website characteristics affect initial trust

in a m-commerce website, which will be discussed below

by answering the second research question:

How do website characteristics affect the perceived trust-

worthiness?

Perceived design effort

One of the most prominent indicators from the results is the

feeling of design effort, i.e., the perceived time put into the

design, affecting the perceived trustworthiness. This can be

connected to the theory of perceived ability (skills and

competencies) and benevolence (caring about the consum-

er) affecting initial trust suggested by [25], and that if one

or more of them is questionable the initial trust is negatively

affected [33]. The perceived design effort was shown to be

induced by a combination of purposeful and clear visual

design, internal design consistency and content quality and

mobile adaptation. Therefore, this thesis suggests that a

combination of those characteristics can enhance the feeling

that an e-vendor has put time into the design of the website

and thus increase prospective consumers’ initial trust.

Similarity and purpose over aesthetics

This study indicates that prospective consumers’ perception

of the e-vendor is affected by associations and pre-existing

ideas about visual elements such as illustrations and colours

and highlights the importance of quality and purpose over

aesthetically appealing visual design. In line with [22],

design aesthetics did show to influence initial consumer

trust to some extent where participants felt as if time had

been put into the design, i.e. contributing to perceived de-

sign effort as mentioned in the previous section. Neverthe-

less, in contrast to stating that design aesthetics affect initial

trust as it meets customers' need for enjoyment and arousal,

this study showed that it also needs to fulfill a purpose,

illustrated by how the participants reacted to the choice of

colours and illustrations in the website. Colours that did not

serve a purpose and illustrations associated with other kinds

of websites and services negatively affected the impression

and trustworthiness of the website, even if they were per-

ceived as aesthetically pleasing.

Another interesting finding was the aspects of similarity

and expectations in relation to initial trust in a m-commerce

website. The results indicate that when a m-commerce

website, has a similar design to other e-vendors’, it posi-

tively affects trustworthiness. This could be linked to insti-

tution based trust [21], where trust is built on signs of nor-

mality and that the website shows signs of living up to a

common standard. The feeling of similarity was based on

several aspects such as expectations regarding both the

visual appearance, element placements, information and

functionalities. Interestingly, the participants in the study

seemed to value the similarity to other e-vendors more than

the aesthetic appearance, which further confirms that simi-

larity is important for the initial trust in a m-commerce

website.

This study thus confirms previous research that found that

the visual design of a m-commerce website has implications

for the initial trust formation [12, 22, 23, 32], and further

contributes with the insights that it is more important for

initial trust that the design of a m-commerce website is

similar to other webshops of the same category and that the

visual design is clear and fulfills a purpose rather than being

visually appealing.

Content quality, reading experience and limitations in mobile interface

An interesting finding from the study is the importance of,

what in this thesis is called, the reading experience. The

reading experience was shown to be affected by a combina-

tion of usability aspects regarding how easy the text was to

read [22, 23, 32], the quality of the content [34, 37] in terms

of the writing style, relevance and typos, and the perception

of how much the e-vendor cares for their customers, i.e. the

benevolence [25]. The results contribute to previous re-

search by indicating that the reading experience is especial-

ly important in m-commerce, which has limitations of dis-

playing information, and that prospective consumers expect

information on mobile to be as concise and easy to read as

possible.

Additionally, in agreement with previous research on how

content design and quality influences perceived trust- wor-

thiness [34, 37], this thesis confirms the importance of

accurate, updated, findable and relevant information, both

regarding products and the company, as it was a sign of

professionality and that someone is taking care of the web-

site. The heavy focus on content quality can be a result of

the company acting as a second hand shop, selling re-

claimed and returned goods, which puts extra pressure on

the information provided.

External over internal trust validation

As noted by [10, 20, 28] perceived security showed to af-

fect participants' initial trust in the m-commerce website. In

that context, it was important to be able to verify and con-

firm with external parties that the e-vendor has the ability to

perform the tasks needed, and that they are known to keep

promises. Interestingly, in contrast to [15, 20], specific trust

assurances such as warranty and return policy, product

quality guarantee, and delivery on time were not mentioned

as influencing the trustworthiness. Instead, assurances pro-

vided by the e-vendor were perceived as less trustworthy

than external ones. This could be a result of personality

based trust [17], where the participants in the study based it

on prior experiences they have had, or that their initial scep-

tical impression of the website made the internally provided

assurances less trustworthy. Another contrasting insight to

previous studies [10, 20] is that none of the participants

commented on perceived privacy nor mentioned sharing

personal information as a concern, since they all felt like

that information is already shared with multiple companies

already. That could be a result of the young participant

group being used to- and comfortable with sharing privacy

information online and that other security aspects such as

payment method, shipping and fraud accord greater weight.

However, the results in this study indicate that it is im-

portant for prospective consumers to be able to take part of

previous customers’ purchasing experiences through re-

views and, for example, look at a data protection policy

provided by an external party, in this case Klarna. External-

ly provided reviews were also found to be perceived as a

sign of others using the website, thus reducing the risk of it

being a scam.

Importance of the overall impression and experience

The results indicate that the overall impression of the de-

sign is highly important for the initial trust formation in an

unknown m-commerce website and that when the user

experience is disrupted, it affects the initial trust negatively.

This relates to the theory of cognitive trust base, where trust

is formed based on first impressions and rapid, cognitive

cues [17]. As results state, a combination of visual design

aspects, similarity to other webshops and expectations on

structure and functionalities set the basis for the rest of the

experience and that a bad first impression affects how pro-

spective consumers evaluate the website. For example,

when the overall design is perceived as unprofessional or

induces a sceptical feeling it increases the need for assur-

ances such as looking at social proof of who is behind the

website [19, 34, 37], as well as external validation through,

for example, review systems like Trustpilot or external

payment systems like Klarna. Here, integrations of external

parties that can verify the website, as well as proof of social

presence can make up for a bad first impression of the web-

site in terms of perceived trustworthiness. However, from

the results it can also be seen that a bad first impression of

the visual and structural design affected the external inte-

grations' credibility. This indicates that the overall impres-

sion is important and should be considered carefully to gain

prospective consumers’ initial trust in an unknown e-vendor

and that initial trust cannot solely be induced by having

such external integrations on the website.

Recommendations for practitioners

Based on the results from the study, some general sugges-

tions on how to design for gaining prospective consumers’

initial trust in an unknown m-commerce website are pre-

sented below, thus answering the research question:

What should be considered by designers when developing a

m-commerce website for it to be perceived as trustworthy?

Carefully selected visual design

The initial trust formation in a m-commerce website could

be enhanced by carefully selecting the visual design and its

elements, making sure that they convey the desired message

and serves a purpose, as well as having a clear layout and

using only a few colours, fonts and elements to avoid the

cluttered and messy feeling that the participants experi-

enced in this study. This adds to the suggestion by [12] that

a clear layout can enhance initial trust in m-commerce.

Results also indicate that choosing a colour scheme and

graphical elements that reflect the business and brand can

enhance initial trust in the e-vendor.

Internal design consistency

Keeping a consistent visual design between different pages

could help improve the feeling of craftsmanship and design

effort, which from the results showed to positively influ-

ence the trustworthiness of the m-commerce website.

Therefore, this study suggests having clear design guide-

lines that are followed throughout the website.

Ensure similarity and meet expectations

Make sure that the website follows pre-set expectations of a

m-commerce website in the same category. This regard, for

example, visual appearance, element placements, infor-

mation and functionalities such as checkout process and

sorting/filtering.

Mobile adaptation and reading experience

Ensure that the website is adapted for mobile use by having

an intuitive and clear structure of elements, pages and in-

formation, as well as easy navigation. This study further

suggests that in a mobile context, to avoid crowded sections

of text and to make sure that only the most relevant infor-

mation is included. In that way, the information might be

easier for customers to absorb and thus reduce the over-

whelming feeling that the participants experienced in the

study. Additionally, keeping “free language” to a minimum

in places such as the contact page can make the website

seem more professional and caring about the concerns of a

prospective consumer.

Content quality

This study revealed that in a mobile context, content quality

is highly important for initial trust. Therefore, ensuring

accurate, updated, findable and relevant information, for

example that product images correspond to product infor-

mation and presenting information in a structured and hier-

archical manner, can help induce a more trustworthy feel-

ing.

Provide social proof

Providing images of representatives and information about

who is behind the website is important for prospective con-

sumers’ initial trust, as it generates a feeling that someone

is held accountable if something goes wrong and reduces

the feeling of anonymity.

External validation

Based on the discussion that the overall impression affects

the need for external validation, this study suggests that it is

of importance to include integrations of external trust assur-

ances such as a review- and a payment system. This can

help induce a trustworthy feeling upon the first visit with an

unknown m-commerce website and possibly reduce the

impact of a bad first impression and overall design experi-

ence. Another suggestion would be to have these integra-

tions available sooner rather than later during the customer

journey, for example in the case of the case study website,

having the Klarna logo and Trustpilot integration higher up

in the landing page.

Method reflection

The choice of utilizing an exploratory case study approach

was suitable for the purpose of the study, as it enabled gain-

ing in-depth insights of how website characteristics can

influence initial trust in a m-commerce website. However,

as with many qualitative studies, the methodology chosen

in this thesis has some implications.

Firstly, investigating only one m-commerce website makes

it difficult to generalize the results outside of the context of

the study. Secondly, priming users about the aim of the

study might also have affected the way participants looked

at and experienced the website. However, since the aim of

the study was to investigate initial trust it was important to

not investigate usability on its own without a trust context,

since that was out of the scope of this study.

The age of the participant group might have affected the

results of the study, since people with different digital ma-

turity might have different perceptions of what constitutes a

trustworthy m-commerce website and having a certain

propensity to trust due to them being used to interacting

with mobile devices and shopping online. Thus, the find-

ings and conclusions can only be drawn for that particular

age group. Additionally, the study setting did not include a

real purchase situation and all participants knew that they

were taking part in a test. This might limit the possibility of

transferring the findings to actual m-commerce situations

with real transactions and risks.

Regarding the interviews and think-aloud tasks, as always

in qualitative research the choice of questions and tasks

might have impacted the result. This risk was reduced by

taking question inspiration from [11] and testing the think-

aloud tasks and interview questions in the pilot study.

CONCLUSION

This thesis aimed to investigate what and how website

characteristics affect initial trust in a m-commerce website

by qualitatively exploring the mobile version of the e-

vendor’ website. The purpose was to gain a deeper under-

standing of how the design of a m-commerce website af-

fects initial trust. The study confirms the importance of

website design and that the user interface can enhance ini-

tial trust and several website characteristics were identified

in the study, such as purposeful and clear visual design,

internal design consistency, mobile adaptation and reading

experience, content quality, similarity and expectations,

social proof and external validation, influencing initial trust

in an unknown m-commerce website. The thesis further

provides the insight that perceived design effort and overall

impression of the design are especially important aspects

for initial trust, as it affects the need to externally validate

the website. Additionally, the study concludes that it is

more important for initial trust that the design of a m-

commerce website is similar to other webshops of the same

category and that the visual design is clear and fulfills a

purpose rather than being aesthetically appealing. The study

findings are useful for designers as it provides insights and

recommendations on how to design trustworthy m-

commerce websites, both as support in the design process

and for evaluation purposes.

Future work

As this thesis was limited to a certain age group, namely

young adults, it would be interesting to look at how other

age groups’ initial trust in m-commerce is influenced by

website characteristics. Additionally, future research could

take the insights from this thesis and apply in the design of

a m-commerce website and measure the effect on perceived

trustworthiness. To get more generalizable results, a com-

parative study could be made between different m-

commerce websites.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to express my gratitude to my supervisors from

KTH, Olga Viberg and Cristian Bogdan, for all the support

and feedback during this study. I also want to thank my

external supervisor Max Ringi for steering me into the right

direction and bouncing ideas. Lastly, I would like to thank

everyone who participated in this study, and my family and

friends for all the support during the process.

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