Performance of aging consumers in an e-commerce product choice task: The role of working memory and decision strategies

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cris.lastimport.scopus2025-08-30T03:12:22Z
dc.abstract.enOver the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in research on aging and the decision-making behavior of older consumers. The subject of this article is multi-attribute decisions made using product comparison, a widely used functionality of many e-commerce stores. Studies on cognitive aging have established a negative relationship between age and accuracy in multi-attribute choice tasks; however, works in informatics (Human-Computer Interaction, UX research) have not accounted for how individual user differences affect the optimality of users’ product comparison decisions. Our work attempts to bridge this gap between the disciplines of psychology of aging and informatics. We predicted and confirmed, in an online study simulating e-commerce shopping, the strong limitations of older adults in product comparison tasks. In subsequent modeling, other individual characteristics, such as visual working memory, were predicted and shown to be a reliable mediator of the relationship between age and decision accuracy. Popular product comparison tables are not sufficient for older consumers. Despite following UX guidelines for designing product comparison tables, overall correctness of consumer decisions in our study ranged from 90% to as little as 30%, depending on the difficulty of the task and the age of the consumer. These findings have important practical implications for UX design of e-commerce Websites.
dc.affiliationInstytut Psychologii
dc.affiliationWydział Psychologii w Warszawie
dc.affiliationWydział Projektowania
dc.affiliationWydział Projektowania w Warszawie
dc.contributor.authorRydzewska, Klara
dc.contributor.authorNielek, Radosław
dc.contributor.authorPawłowska, Justyna
dc.contributor.authorWierzbicki, Adam
dc.contributor.authorSędek, Grzegorz
dc.contributor.editorSohaib Mustafa
dc.date.access2024-06-21
dc.date.accessioned2024-06-26T05:51:33Z
dc.date.available2024-06-26T05:51:33Z
dc.date.created2024-05-01
dc.date.issued2024-06-21
dc.description.abstract<jats:p>Over the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in research on aging and the decision-making behavior of older consumers. The subject of this article is multi-attribute decisions made using product comparison, a widely used functionality of many e-commerce stores. Studies on cognitive aging have established a negative relationship between age and accuracy in multi-attribute choice tasks; however, works in informatics (Human-Computer Interaction, UX research) have not accounted for how individual user differences affect the optimality of users’ product comparison decisions. Our work attempts to bridge this gap between the disciplines of psychology of aging and informatics. We predicted and confirmed, in an online study simulating e-commerce shopping, the strong limitations of older adults in product comparison tasks. In subsequent modeling, other individual characteristics, such as visual working memory, were predicted and shown to be a reliable mediator of the relationship between age and decision accuracy. Popular product comparison tables are not sufficient for older consumers. Despite following UX guidelines for designing product comparison tables, overall correctness of consumer decisions in our study ranged from 90% to as little as 30%, depending on the difficulty of the task and the age of the consumer. These findings have important practical implications for UX design of e-commerce Websites.</jats:p>
dc.description.accesstimeat_publication
dc.description.grantnumber2018/29/B/HS6/02604
dc.description.granttitleWspieranie ludzi w starszym wieku w dokonywaniu bardziej optymalnych wyborów w złożonych zadaniach decyzyjnych dotyczących zakupów internetowych
dc.description.issue6
dc.description.physical1-21
dc.description.versionfinal_published
dc.description.volume19
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0303806
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203
dc.identifier.urihttps://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/746
dc.identifier.weblinkhttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0303806
dc.languageen
dc.pbn.affiliationpsychologia
dc.rightsCC-BY
dc.rights.questionYes_rights
dc.share.articleOPEN_JOURNAL
dc.swps.sciencecloudsend
dc.titlePerformance of aging consumers in an e-commerce product choice task: The role of working memory and decision strategies
dc.title.journalPLOS ONE
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeArticle