Multimedia Interactivity on the Internet

Abstract

With the interactive capabilities on the Internet, business activities such as product display, order placing and payment are given a new facelift (Liu & Shrum, 2002). Consumer experience is also enhanced in an interactive environment (Haseman, Nuipolatoglu & Ramamurthy, 2002). A higher level of interactivity increases the perceived telepresence and the user’s attitude towards a Web site (Coyle & Thorson, 2001). When it comes to learning, a higher level of interactivity improves learning and learner satisfaction (Liu & Schrum, 2002). While interactivity does not necessarily enable enhanced gain in user learning, it positively influences learners’ attitudes (Haseman et al., 2002). Interactivity has been shown to engage users in multimedia systems (Dysart, 1998) to encourage revisits to a Web site (Dholakia et al., 2000), to increase satisfaction toward such systems (Rafaeli &Sudweeks, 1997), to enhance the visibility (as measured in number of referrals or backward links) of Web sites (Chen & Sockel, 2001) and to increase acceptance (Coupey, 1996).