1. Case 1

2. Case 2

3. Case 3

5. How Internet users perceive human images as one element of website design?
Controlled experiment was conducted using a questionnaire, interviews, and eye-tracking
- Human images with facial features would induce a user to perceive the website as more appealing, having warmth or social presence, and as more trustworthy

6. User reactions to technology
Conventional cognition-driven paradigm
- Usability-based design characteristics
- Website design elements related to their impact on user trust or satisfaction
- Behavioral or cognitive focus
Hedonic-driven user reaction
- Focus on affective consumer behavior as elicited from emotive and multisensory elements
- Focus on affect and emotion in the examination of information technology (Kim et al.2007; Sun and Zhang 2006).
- Hedonic (non-instrumental) human needs, emotion, affect, and experience.

7. New theoretical perspectives
Move beyond the technology acceptance model (TAM) into the realm of emotive reactions
- Hedonic elements of a website contribute to the user’s experience (Childers et al. 2001; Cyr et al. 2006; Hessanein and Head 2007; Hessenzahl 2002; van der Heijden 2003,2004)
- Visual design of the website contribute to emotional appeal for users (Garrett 2003)
- Relationship between aesthetic beauty of a website and trust on the website (Karvonen 2000)
- Impact of social cues and “warmth” of websites impart a feeling of social presence related to the user’s experience of the website (Gefen and Staub 2003; Hassanein and Head 2007; Yoo and Alavi 2001)

8. Visual Rhetoric Theory
- Rhetoric Theory : Interpretive theory that frames a message as an interested party’s attempt to influence an audience (Scott 1994, p.252)
- Complex visual communication: Images, texts afford meaning to the viewer
- Visual rhetoric theory: visual view point, focus, graphics, and layout are related in a specific way to the message itself (Scott 1994, p.225)
- Computer example: image, text add fresh, unexpected perspective to viewer, expands viewer’s experience of the item.
- Communication is figurative and evocative rather than literal

9. Social presence theory
- Social presence : The extent to which a medium allows users to experience others as being psychologically present (Gefen and Straub 2003, p.11)
Social presence embedded in communication theory (Short et al 1976)
Communication is effective if the communication medium has the appropriate social presence required for the level of interpersonal involvement required for a task
- Psychological connection with the user, who perceives the website as warm, personal, sociable, thus creating a feeling of human contact (Yoo and Alavi 2001)

10. Research model

11. Hypothesis 1 Image appeal will be highest in the high-human condition, when compared to the medium-human and no-human conditions
- Images in AD
- Visual design
- Images of people
Emotional responses
Emotional appeal
Human images
with facial features

12. Hypothesis 2 Perceived social presence will be highest in the high-human condition, when compared to the medium-human and no-human conditions.
- Text
- Pictures
- Human figures
Social presence
Human images
with facial features

13. Hypothesis 3 Trust will be highest in the high-human condition, when compared to the medium-human and no-human conditions
- Image design
- Aesthetics of website design
- Enjoyable user experience
- Trust
Human face photos
& social cues
- Attract attention
- Affective response
- Online trust
Human images with facial features

14. Hypothesis 4 Higher image appeal will result in higher levels of trust
- Image design
- Aesthetics of website design
- Enjoyable user experience
- Trust
- Attract attention
- Affective response
- Online trust
Human face photos
& social cues
Human images
with facial features
Image appeal

15. Hypothesis 5 Higher perceived social presence will result in higher levels of trust.
- Image design
- Aesthetics of website design
- Enjoyable user experience
- Trust
Human face photoes
& social cues
Online trust
Human images
with facial features
Social presence
Information rich
Reduced ambiguity & risk

16. Research model