The interactive look and feel of a corporate website could help shape positive perceptions about the organization if the site includes a likeable design and features that engage the target audience, particularly job seekers, as per media researchers.
S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film, video and media studies at Penn State, and Jamie Guillory, formerly an undergraduate student at Penn State, are trying to understand how interactivity in websites influences the public perception of an organization. In prior studies of websites of political candidates, Sundar had observed that the candidates were rated more positively if their site had some interactive features, even though the sites had no new content, and the candidates held the same policy positions. But too much interactivity tends to turn off people.
"Websites with low to medium levels of interactivity create positive perceptions but for medium to high interactivity, it actually falls down," said Sundar. "In general, too much interactivity is not desirable, and may lead to information overload".
Whatever effects, positive or negative, on a site, interactivity acts as a volume knob that boosts the effect, he explained, noting, "Just through the presence of such features, people attribute meaning to the content or the nature of the site".........
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