Images in Academic Web Pages as Marketing Tools: Meeting the Challenge of Service Intangibility

Feelings of pleasantness and perceived attractiveness were significantly higher in response to abstract decorations and symbols than to photos of buildings or people, and the role of instrumentality, aesthetics, and symbolism in the design of virtual servicescapes is suggested.

Abstract

An important dispute among web page designers regards the application of photos and images. In an experimental study 478 participants evaluated an academic web page differing only in the presence of images and the category of images presented. Feelings of pleasantness, perceived attractiveness of the web page, and perceived service quality were significantly higher in response to a web page with images than to one without, and all were significantly higher in response to photos of buildings than to photos of people. Feelings of pleasantness and perceived attractiveness, but not perceived service quality, were significantly higher in response to abstract decorations and symbols than to photos of buildings or people. The results highlight the importance of service firms including photos and images in the design of web pages and also show that the categories of images chosen can have an impact on the desired outcomes. The findings suggest the role of instrumentality, aesthetics, and symbolism in the design of virtual servicescapes.