User Loyalty Articles

During the two cycles of the iterative design process the use of appropriate design that suits the topic, focus on the topic, delivery of content and the creation of a positive atmosphere were identified as the most essential aspects for a valuable user experience. The prerequisite for these aspects to become the most essential was that the lower levels of user needs, usability and availability, were fulfilled.

Four pages had personalisation features implemented, the start page, the news page, the idea-rating page and the start page of the tutorial. While the tutorial did not have enough visitors to be of interest in this study, the personalisation system of the idea-rating page lacked content and therefore could not work as planned. The findings show that the news page and the start page were better perceived by users that had the personalisation features enabled (B+users). The accuracy and coverage of the news page personalisation system could be confirmed. B+users perceived the website as more trustworthy, were more interested in new features of the site and were more likely to recommend the site. This indication of increased user loyalty was confirmed by data that showed that B+users were visiting the site more frequently. Therefore, the hypothesis, that it is possible by utilising dynamic personalisation to increase user loyalty to a site, is confirmed.

Start page

Even though in the overall category B+users rated the start page better than B-users, the categories of usability and importance were rated better by B-users, while structure was rated equally by both groups.

News page

The news page was rated overall and in structure and usability better by B+users, while B-users rated the importance slightly better.

Ideas page

B-users rated the ideas page as better in all four categories.

The survey further showed that all five B+users ‘always find something interesting in the news’, while B-users where less likely to find something of interest. B+users and B-users are both equally worried about their privacy on the Internet and B+users responded slightly more positive that the site was credible and personal. More B+users responded positively to the two questions that indicated their loyalty. B+users also were able to identify with the site slightly better. Expectations were equally met, even though the rating shows that they were not exceeded. While B-users rate the content of the site slightly better, B+users perceive the site as more trustworthy than do B-users.

The key findings are that pages which rely heavily on personalisation (start page, news page) are perceived better by B+users. The ideas page could not use the personalisation system that was implemented as it was planned because of its low amount of content (44 ideas at the time of the survey) distributed over 16 categories. Therefore user could not create profiles that represent their preferences.

The sum of all ratings of the first three sections show that the news page was the best-perceived section of the site followed by the start page and then the ideas page.

The impact of the news page personalisation on users is confirmed by the positive rating that B+ users ‘always find something interesting in the news’.

During the two months of the field study, the sum of all visits to the news page by users in both groups 396. The difference is that B+users visited 279 links to news while B-users visited only 159. This data confirms the statement that B+users were more likely to find something interesting in the news.

The effectiveness of the news page personalisation system was confirmed by the fact that four out of the five B+users named the same category of news as their favourite, according to their user profiles. An interesting aspect is that only one of the B-users named the category that was the highest ranked in their user profile. This could mean that the delivery of the most favoured news as the first news every time a B+user came back to the site has helped them to develop a concrete preference.

The fact that B+users could identify slightly better with the site and that the news page personalisation system delivered content similar to their preferences explains why the site is clearly more trustworthy in the eyes of B+users (Fogg, 2003, p. 123)

The importance of trust for loyalty (Koufaris et al.2002; Vatanasombut et al. 2004; Kim 2000) might have played a role in that more B+users responded positively to the two questions that indicated their loyalty to the site (Stratigos, pers. com. Feb. 19, 2005; Heater, pers. com. Feb. 19, 2005).

The evaluation of the question about how users would describe the atmosphere showed that the atmosphere was perceived as very positive.

Both questions, the question about the atmosphere and the question about what users miss on the site, were also used to evaluate certain aspects of the site.

Two B+users characterised the atmosphere of the site as ‘personal’ , two others said it was ‘dynamic’ and two said they enjoyed the feeling of being in a group, even though one mentioned that the start page should have a better structure. On the question of whether there was something missing, one B+user would like to see several improvements in the ideas section. Three B-users characterised the atmosphere as ‘pleasant’ and one emphasised that he enjoyed the community on the site.

On the question of whether something was missing, two B-users would like to see improvements in the ideas section while one would like to see more structure on the start page. A look at the results of the survey in general shows that the atmosphere on the site is related to the use of warm colours. Of 21 members who gave a comment on it, nine members mentioned the positive impact of the chosen colours on the atmosphere.

Five members said the atmosphere of the website was friendly, while four members said that the atmosphere was personal and they enjoyed the feeling of being in a community.

15 members responded to the question of whether there was something missing.

While eight members said they did not miss anything, five members would like to see improvements in the ideas section. One member said the start page was too unstructured, while two members mentioned this in the question about the atmosphere of the site. Therefore, this issue is not solved and will have to be addressed in the future.

An interesting finding is that users in the B+users and B-users group tended to associate atmosphere more with community and a personal touch, while other users, who used the site over a shorter time associated atmosphere more often with the impression they got from the colors and the visual design. Of all 10 members in the B+ and B- user group only one member mentioned the positive effect of colour.

For the general evaluation of tracking data only data from members who visited the site more than once was considered as valid. This was done to exclude the data of members who joined for the first survey and did not return.

The tracking data showed that B+users with two or more visits looked at an average of 1.47 news items each time they visited while B-users looked at 0.97 news items every visit. Over all, in the time from December 15 to February 15 B+users visited 439 news links and B-users 208. That was done during 299 visits of B+users and 215 by B-users (fig1). Over all, B+users were more likely to find something interesting in their news than B-users.

The run of the curve that shows the frequency of visits is similar between B+users and B-users, but a B+user was more likely to return after three visits.

On average, during these two months, B+users visited 28.09% times more often than B-users.

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