When Visual Richness Meets Cognitive Simplicity: How Interface Design Shapes Consumer Experience in Digital Fashion Commerce

This study examines how user interface type and interface complexity influence perceived shopping quality in digital fashion commerce. Drawing on dual-process theory and the online servicescape perspective, two 2 × 2 between-subjects experiments were conducted in apparel and cosmetics shopping contexts, with 192 valid participants in each study. The results show that peripheral-route-oriented user interfaces, characterized by visual richness and interactivity, consistently produce higher perceived shopping quality than central-route-oriented user interfaces. Low-complexity interfaces are also evaluated more favorably than high-complexity interfaces. However, the conditional effects differ across product categories. Study 1 provided qualified evidence that shopping frequency conditioned the joint effect of interface type and complexity, whereas in Study 2, interface type and complexity mainly showed direct effects. These findings suggest that effective digital shopping interfaces should combine visual richness with structural simplicity, while also accounting for differences across product categories. The study applies a dual-process-informed perspective to digital interface design and identifies product category and shopping engagement as potential boundary conditions in consumer responses to online shopping environments.