Effects of Website Quality on Users’ Perceived Responses and Loyalty

This study identified various factors that enhance the quality of educational institutions’ websites byreviewing several existing studies on website qualities, in an attempt to empirically verify the effects ofthese identified factors on website users’ perceived responses and loyalty. The study’s questionnaire wasconducted on the students of a foreign language institution located in the Geonggi Province. A total of 388questionnaires were analyzed, and the results are as follows. First, website quality was set as the independent variable, and was sub-divided into information quality,service quality, and system quality. These sub-factors of website quality were further divided into severalfactors. The information quality was categorized into utility, currency, accuracy, and interestingness; theservice quality was categorized into searchability, diversity, interactivity, aesthetics, and connectivity, andthe system quality was categorized into security and stability. The website users’ perceived responses andloyalty were set as the dependent variables, which were further categorized into measurable sub-factors;perceived responses were categorized into attitude, trust and satisfaction, and loyalty was categorized intoword of mouth/purchase and return visit intention. The results of the analyses revealed that connectivity (service quality) had the greatest effect on attitude(users’ perceived response); aesthetics (service quality) had the greatest effect on trust (users’ perceivedresponse), and interactivity (service quality) had the greatest effect on satisfaction (users’ perceivedresponse). Furthermore, searchability (service quality) had the greatest effect on word of mouth/purchase(loyalty), and aesthetics (service quality) had the greatest effect on return visit intention (loyalty). Attitude, trust, and satisfaction had a significant positive effect on word of mouth/purchase and return visitintention, with satisfaction and attitudes having the most effect on word of mouth/purchase and return visitintention, respectively.