Non-Technical Factors on the Internet Acceptability - Case Study Example

Web accessibility and the Internet - Cultural Issues Introduction With the extensive growth being experienced in the area of internet based commercial operations, the impact of the non-technical factors on the internet acceptability have become a very important area of research. The most the companies and shopping groups use online medium has a core component for their promotional exercises. Thus the efficiency of such exercises in converting the efforts into quantified business transactions would finally result in the final success of such initiatives. Most of the leading advertisement groups like interacting advertising Bureau (IAB), Price water Coopers (PwC) and Kelsey Group repots an estimated rise of about 25% in online advertisements across one year. The general perception of the internet based information dissemination is often mixed. Some of them are of the view that these initiatives could bring significant benefits to the viewers while the other group are of the opinion that the internet medium could be very "annoying or intrusive" (Pacheco, 2008). Most of the commercial operators opinion that t he internet based operations would be the future gold mine. Also, the viewers feel that the medium of the internet gives them an unique opportunity to get any information in the most quicker and cost effective manner. The studies that explores the importance of views and reactions on the acceptability of internet and web content would certainly help to initiate steps to enhance the teachability of wen content. This exercise is inevitable considering the potential applications the internet have in all the vital domains of human interaction. Internet Acceptability The studies have been undertaken extensively to assess the qualitative features of the web content that primarily results in their acceptability. On the research undertaken to analyze the aforementioned factors considering the web advertisement as the core aspect have given significant information. The factors like the volume of the content, the type of graphical illustration, the gender and age of viewers, colour and type of fond and artwork are considered in the investigation. The opinion from one such researcher was on the impact that the animation pictures have on the viewers (Zhang, 2006). The researcher was of the opinion that the animation always created displeasure among the viewers as even if the viewer is not inclined to see them they were forced to observe the content. But on the aminated banners positioned on the internet sites it was observed that these had resulted in the quicker reaction times and faster recall than the stationary banner ads on the internet (Bayles, 2002). The further investigations conducted on the colour, text and graphics revealed that these parameters had great influence on the click through process undertaken by the internet viewers while browsing that particular page. While the flash type banners were able to generate the sense of curiosity among the online participants though the flash banners have resulted in the increase in their workload (Burke, et al, 2005). Among the nature of content in the web ads, the addition of emotions into the animations could achieve better click through rate for business to customer advertisements (Lohtia et al, 2003). The time response or onset timing to the web ads, where a particular advertisement would prop up based on the type of task the particular viewer undertakes on the web. When such appear on the screen , the acceptability to them was found to be related to the viewers relation with the particular task. When any animation of the above particular type appears at the initial stage of the task the it was well accepted while when the viewer receives it towards the end of the work the interest level shown was too low (Zhang, 2006). The display styles and the corresponding response rate too showed a significant correlation. The vertical display styles ere given much higher preference rather than the pop-ups based advertisements (Chang et al, 2004). The authors were of the opinion that pop-ups viewers had expressed strong dislike for pop-ups as most of them felt the pop-ups as disturbing, irritating and annoying. But it was also observed that the recall rate was very poor for the pop-ups when compared to banner displays on the web pages. Another striking observation that the researchers have made was, the in line advertisements have led to better recall rate of both the content and the site (McCoy et al, 2007). Also placing of the advertisement objects could also differentiate the sense of perception into negative and positive feelings. The studies have also revealed that increased exposure level and the number of web pages could lead to positive influence on the purchasing probabilities (Hollis, 2005). The other important elements that were found very significant in deciding the acceptability web content are colour scheme, size of the display item and the components of the media. The important components of the media are image of the objects, graphics selected for the display, video files chosen and sound effects incorporated. Often the size of the display item was found to have direct relationship with the adherence time of the viewer. The data collected from the viewer adherence rate to the different banner display item on the web sites, Li and Bukovac (1999) found that larger banner was able to increase the adherence time much higher than the smaller banner advertisements. Also, the bright colour objects had stronger positive effect than the dull or feeble coloured animation in retaining he viewers. But the medium intensity of colour was the most accepted based on the higher click rates than the banners with high and low intensity of colour (Lohatia et al, 2003). On Viewers The perception of the people to web advertisements were influenced by variety of factors. The major factors that influenced the viewers perception are cognitive styles, the personalities involved in the web content, the emotions created by content like negative or positive state of mind etc (Jin and Villigas, 2007). The emotional attitude of the viewers were also found to be related to their physical state of the body. The disabled persons often reacted to the special objects presented on the web sites as part of advertising in comparison with the normal individuals. Also, the new users often preferred plain content that they have tried to seek on the internet without any interference from the web advertisements than the routine net users. Also, significant difference in the content impact was also observed across different user types. The low rate internet users were found to receive the content with a lessened impact of t he text presented when the content with mixed with other objects like banners, animations and pop-ups (Yang and Oliver, 2004). These authors were also of the opinion that presence of a favorable interface that facilitate easy navigation across the content were found to result in excellent preference by the viewers besides the future recall. The recall of any content was found by the researchers as the congruity that had existed between the core web content and the other objects that occupied the space of the same page. The retention of the website contents were found to be higher when the contents were found not to be congruent. Thus the web site and its surrounding content was one of the important factors that led to the successful state of web sites. Also the general pattern on the acceptability of content were also dependent on the attitude exhibited by the web users. The studies have shown that net users who carelessly browsed the web site tended to recall the objects like ad displays than more serious and focussed net browsers (Pagendarm et al, 2001). Thus more serious web users were more focussed on the content or the text of their interest and the other features of the web were of least disturbance to them. Further, the experience and habit or the attitude of the net user also resulted in the pattern of the use of the web sites. The increased experience on the web often results in the decreased number of web clicks for all the future visits on any internet site (Dahlen, et al, 2003). Cultural Factors Among the regional acceptability among the internet users, the research study undertaken on the non-english speaking region of Arabia gives interesting results. The study was undertaken among the internet business subscribers in Bahrain, a small country in the Persian Gulf. The objective of the exercise was to bring to light the major issues that existed among the internet users majority of whom majority were first time users. It was surprising to see that the shortage of arabic sites to support their operations were not considered as the major problems facing them related to the internet use (Palmer, 2000). Similar observations made on the Asian Indians too revealed that the immigrants who are more active in the interpersonal communication are able to adjust both physically and psychologically to new systems of communication or information exchange. Thus the cultural adaption of an individual is said to be strongly influenced by their interpersonal communication skill (Kim, 1978). Earlier research undertaken by Won (1977) to examine the association between the extent of mass media interaction and their cultural aspects. the researcher established that the choice of the media by the immigrants could lead to the state of acculturation. Thus in the case of internet use, when any section of population relies extensively on this medium of communication or for information interchange their ability to culturally adapt to the demands of internet would make them more closer to the pattern of this system. The people with weak adaptive skills would tend find this medium not very attractive to meet their intended purpose and hence might not be very convincing on the flexibilities offered by the internet. The impact of cultural factor on the use of digital technologies like internet, web and also information and communication technologies has been extensively investigated in diverse ways. The claims in this aspect are made available from the evidence obtained from large scale contemporary and historical research examples in relation with the societal structure at different instances of time. The social structure primarily deals with the culture in a particular region. The important features considered are experience of the gender, extend of ethnicity, cultural difference across generations, dominant religion, literacy levels and educational standard. Based on the online survey, Melkote and Liu (2000), under took a pioneering study to explore the influence of the internet into the process of intra cultural adaptation. The exercise consisted of undertaking an online survey among the Chinese students and research scholars in United States to understand the role played by Chinese ethnic web sites to strengthen the Chinese culture among this group. The authors conclude that the opportunity provided by the Chinese web sites have helped to sustain and reinforce the Chinese culture among the Chinese student population in America. Also, investigations have been undertaken to understand the influence of "role and effect' of respective national culture on the usage of internet besides the socio-economic factors and the educational achievements (Gong et al, 2007). Thus the cultural factors are considered to be the prime parameters that need to be evaluated to understand the reasons behind the differences across a certain established national patterns of diffusion and the uneven acceptable rates in certain countries or regions. Conclusion The extensive studies undertaken in the past clearly emphasizes the cultural impact on the internet accessibility and also its use. The essay portrays the issues in the accessibility of the internet and how the preferences could influence the net use behavior of individuals. Also, the cultural factors that strongly influences the web use and internet acceptability have also bee explained . References Bayles, M.E. (2002), Designing Online Banner Advertisements: Should We Animate?, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, Minneapolis, Minnesota, pp. 363-366. Dahlen, M., Rasch, A., and Rosengren, S.(2003), Love at First Site? A Study of Website Advertising Effectiveness, Journal of Advertising Research (43:1) , pp 25-33. Gong, W., Li, Z.G. and Stump, R.L. (2007) Global internet use and access: cultural considerations, Asia Pacific Journal of marketing and Logistics, pp 57 - 74. Hollis, N.(2005), Ten Years of Learning on How Online Advertising Builds Brands, Journal of Advertising Research, 45(2), pp 255-268. Jin, C.H., and Villegas, J.(2007), Consumer Responses to Advertising on the Internet: The Effect of Individual Difference on Ambivalence and Avoidance, Cyber Psychology & Behavior , 10(2), pp 258-266. Kim , Y.Y.(1977), Communication patterns of foreign immigrants in the process of acculturation, Human Communication Research, 4, pp 66-77. Li, H., and Bukovac, J.L. (1999), Cognitive Impact of Banner AD Characteristics: An Experimental Study, J&MC Quarterly, pp 341-353. Lohtia, R., Donthu, N., and Hershberger, E.K. (2003), The Impact of Content and Design Elements on Banner Advertising Click-through Rates, Journal of Advertising Research (43:4) 2, pp 410-418. Lohtia, R., Donthu, N., and Hershberger, E.K. (2003), The Impact of Content and Design Elements on Banner Advertising Click-through Rates, Journal of Advertising Research , 43(4), pp 410-418. McCoy, S., Everard, A., Polak, P., and Galletta, D.F.(2007), The Effect of Online Advertising, Communications of ACM , 50(3), pp 84-88. Melkote, S.R. and Liu, D.J. (2000) , The role of internet in forging a pluralistic integration - a study of chinese intellectuals in United States, Gazette, 62(6), pp 495 - 504 Pacheco, E. 92008), Interactive Advertising Revenues to Reach US$147 Billion Globally by 2012, According to The Kelsey Group’s Annual Forecast, The Kelsey Group, Princeton, NJ. Pagendarm, M., and Schaumburg, H. (2001), Why Are Users Banner-Blind? The Impact of Navigation Style on the Perception of Web Banners, Journal of Digital Information , 2(1), Palmer, J.J. (2000), Internet access in Bahrain : business patterns and problems, Technovation, 20(8), pp 451-459 Yang, H., and Oliver, M.B. (2004), Exploring the Effects of Online Advertising on Readers' Perceptions of Online News, J&MC Quarterly , 8(14), pp 733-749. Zhang, P(2006),. Pop-up Animations: Impact and implications for website design and online advertising, in:Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Applications, D. Galletta and P. Zhang (eds.), M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY. pp. 70-97. Read More