Carlos Flavián Blanco

Effects of visual and textual information in online product presentations: looking for the best combination in website design

Received: 14 January 2010 Revised: 20 April 2010 2nd Revision: 11 June 2010 Accepted: 5 July 2010 Abstract Online product presentation constitutes a key challenge for marketers and designers who want to satisfy consumers’ needs. Visual and textual product information affect recognition and knowledge about the product. This research examines whether the presence (vs absence) of a product image and textual information in a schematic mode (vs paragraph mode) affect users’ recall and perceptions of the quality of the electronic products’ information. The moderating role of user’s familiarity with the website and product also may play a role; the evolution of these variables likely will determine trends in e-commerce research. The results show that a schematic display of textual information improves perceptions of information quality. When a picture of the product appears together with textual information, users remember more information and consider it easier to remember if that information appears schematically. However, without a product picture, users allocate more resources to process paragraph information and therefore recall more information and perceive it as easier to recall. The degrees of familiarity also have important directional effects on these relationships. European Journal of Information Systems (2010) 19, 668–686. doi:10.1057/ejis.2010.42; published online 17 August 2010Online product presentation constitutes a key challenge for marketers and designers who want to satisfy consumers’ needs. Visual and textual product information affect recognition and knowledge about the product. This research examines whether the presence (vs absence) of a product image and textual information in a schematic mode (vs paragraph mode) affect users’ recall and perceptions of the quality of the electronic products’ information. The moderating role of users familiarity with the website and product also may play a role; the evolution of these variables likely will determine trends in e-commerce research. The results show that a schematic display of textual information improves perceptions of information quality. When a picture of the product appears together with textual information, users remember more information and consider it easier to remember if that information appears schematically. However, without a product picture, users allocate more resources to process paragraph information and therefore recall more information and perceive it as easier to recall. The degrees of familiarity also have important directional effects on these relationships.

Laorientación al mercado de la universidad póblica: Un reto para el sistema Untversitario EspaÑol

ResumenLa universidad pública espaúola ha experimentado durante los úultimos aúos profundas transformaciones que están motivando cambios importantes respecto al grado de rivalidad soportada, el tipo de actividades desarrolladas y la forma a través de la cual éstas son llevadas a cabo. En este trabajo se analizan las fuentes de las que precede la creciente competencia a la que se están viendo sometidas las universidades páblicas espaáolas y que están transformando de forma sustancial el entorno en el que se desenvuelve su actividad. Ante estos cambios se destaca la necesidad de que la universidad pública se adapte a las nuevas condiciones del entorno orientando su oferta formativa a las nuevas necesidades y demandas sociales. Para ello se sugiere la adoption de los planteamientos teoricos de la orientación al mercado que, si bien fueron inicialmente desarrollados para guiar el comportamiento de organizaciones que operan en mercados competitivos, durante los últimos aúos han mostrado una gran eficacia al ser aplicados a instituciones públicas u organizaciones no lucrativas.AbstractThe Spanish public university has experienced, for the last few years, a few deep transformation which have produced important changes concerning the degree of rivalry caused, the kind of developed activities and the way the latter ones have been put into action. In this paper we analyse the sources from which the increasing competence comes from and to which the Spanish universities have been throught. It has transformed, in a substantial way, the environment in which the activity is developed. In the turn out of these changes, we highlight the need of the public university to be adapted to the new conditions in the environment, orienting its formative offer to the new needs and social demands. With this purpose in mind, we suggest the adoption of theoretic approaches to the market orientation, initially developed for guiding behaviour in organizations that operate in competitive markets and which have proved to be efficient when applied to public institutions and non-profit organizations.