From Skeuomorphism to Flat Design: When Font and Layout of M-Commerce Websites Affect Behavioral Intentions

Brands and private labels are constantly seeking ways to increase the persuasive power of their webpages on the Internet, especially on handled devices such as mobile phones or tablets. To this end, brands and private labels are encouraged to match the executional elements of their mobile webpages (e.g. visuals such as fonts and layout) with their consumer’s intention to process brand information from webpages. Following this approach, this study examines the effects of the font and layout of the design of mobile phone websites, a potentially critical and under-investigated executional element, on behavioral intentions. A mobile phone website was specifically designed for this study. The research was conducted on French consumers. Through online and personal survey questionnaires, 312 responses were collected. Data was analyzed using ANOVA and linear regression. The findings indicate that not only is ease-of-use capable of affecting consumer ability to process brand information on web pages, but also that the effects of various font characteristics have the potential to significantly influence behavioral intentions. Therefore, font represents a major executional element of word-driven mobile web pages, which should be highly considered when designing websites for mobile devices.