Investigating Cultural Differences in Initial Visual Perceptions of Web Pages

This study examines these immediate aesthetic perceptions in a cultural context with the aim of determining whether the cultural factors uncertainty avoidance, context orientation and time orientation influence how users perceive Web pages. Using subjective assessments and response latency measures, the experiment was conducted in Spain and the United States. In each country, 26 participants assessed 50 Web pages over two phases. In both countries’ surveys, the average attractiveness ratings after a very short exposure period were correlated with the average attractiveness ratings after a much longer exposure. The experiment also demonstrates that general attractiveness ratings differ between the cultures as Spanish users evaluate Web page attractiveness less critically than American users.