Abstracts

Egger, Florian N.. From Interactions to Transactions: Designing the Trust Experience for Business-to-Consumer Electronic Commerce. PhD thesis. [added May 22, 04]

Abstract: Business-to-consumer electronic commerce on the Internet has revolutionised the purchase of products and services by giving consumers round the clock access to worldwide providers. However, B2C e-commerce has also shown to be associated with a myriad of factors hindering adoption and usage by private customers. Such factors include concerns regarding security and privacy, the unfamiliarity of some online services, lack of direct interaction with products, salespeople and fellow shoppers and the generally low credibility of online information. These factors were collectively defined as “trust issues”, as they refer to a purchase decision customers have to make in a situation of uncertainty and risk. The first objective of this research was to build up substantive knowledge about which specific factors make customers trust e-commerce websites. The second objective was to build up and validate methodological knowledge in the form of tools that HCI practitioners can use to design and evaluate trust-shaping factors in e-commerce websites. On the basis of literature on trust and e-commerce surveys, a first model of trust in e-commerce (MoTEC) was developed. Through user tests, the initial model was refined to increase its descriptive power.