Creating a Sustainable E-Commerce Environment: The Impact of Product Configurator Interaction Design on Consumer Personalized Customization Experience

Abstract

Promoting consumers’ willingness to pay is crucial to creating a sustainable e-commerce environment, and the interaction design of the product configurator plays a key role in this. In the present study, the product configurator, which is indispensable in online customization, is adopted as the research object to analyze the influence of interaction design on the customization experience of consumers. The pricing method (total product pricing, incomplete total product pricing, and individual module pricing) and navigation design pattern (tabs and dropdown menu with arrow buttons) are adopted as independent variables, while system usability, flexible navigation capability, perceived control, perceived enjoyment, complexity and task performance are taken as dependent variables. One hundred and eighty college students participated in this study. The results of the 3 × 2 two-factor experiment reveal that: (1) Different navigation design patterns will lead to significant differences in system usability, flexible navigation capability, and perceived control of the product configurator, and tabs are better than dropdown menu with arrow buttons in these aspects. (2) Different pricing methods will significantly affect the perceived control of users. Under individual module pricing and incomplete total product pricing, perceived control is higher. (3) Different combinations of pricing methods and navigation design patterns will affect users’ evaluation of flexible navigation capability and complexity, and under the individual module pricing and incomplete total product pricing methods, users think that tabs have a higher flexible navigation capability and lower complexity. However, under the total product pricing method, users are convinced that dropdown menu with arrow buttons has a higher flexible navigation capability and lower complexity. The research results are of great significance to both interface interaction design and online customization. Furthermore, the interaction design method of price presentation and navigation design of the product configurator is analyzed to determine the most appropriate interaction design principles, so as to enhance the user experience of online customization and provide constructive ideas from the design perspective for online customization.