The Effect of Layout and Colour Temperature on the Perception of Tourism Websites for Mobile Devices

In e-commerce, the user interface design of a website is critical to its success. However, there is limited research on how colour and layout design elements influence the perception of e-commerce websites for mobile devices. To bridge this gap, we conducted an empirical study to investigate, how the layout of information and colour temperature of an e-commerce tourism website for mobile device influence essential Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) user experience (UX) design attributes and intention to use the website. The results of our Partial Least Square Path Modelling (PLSPM) showed that both interface design elements significantly influence perceived aesthetics, perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness and intention to use. Specifically, layout (list = 0 and grid = 1) positively influences perceived aesthetics and perceived enjoyment, while colour temperature negatively influences perceived usefulness and intention to use. The first finding suggests that in tourism website design for mobile devices, a grid layout of products and services provides a better hedonic user experience than a list layout. Moreover, the second finding suggests that cooler-temperature (blue and green) tourism websites are viewed by users as more useful than warmer-temperature (orange and red) tourism websites. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of website UX design for mobile devices in the tourism domain.