What Makes a Shopping App Feel Right? Navigation Comes First for University Students in Turkey

Open any shopping app on a student's phone in Turkey and you are looking at one of the most crowded screens in the country's digital economy. Dozens of apps compete for the same thumb, and switching to a rival costs nothing. So which parts of the experience actually matter to users? Is it how the app looks, how fast it is, whether it feels safe, or simply whether people can find their way around?

That was the starting point of a master's study completed at Kocaeli University in 2020, in the Visual Communication Design and Advertising programme.

The question

The study asked one main question: what factors shape the user experience of e-commerce apps for university students in Turkey? The aim was practical as well as academic: to give UX designers, developers and business owners a clearer picture of what to prioritise when they build or improve a shopping app.

The thesis framed several hypotheses. Some predicted that usability, efficiency and aesthetics, information structure and content, and security and navigation would all be linked to a better experience. Another predicted that the experience would differ by gender, university, study level and phone operating system.

How it was studied

The research used a descriptive survey design with a quantitative questionnaire.

• The apps: the ten most widely used e-commerce apps in Turkey at the time, chosen from a 2020 app-market ranking: Trendyol, Hepsiburada, n11, Dolap, Morhipo, FLO, GittiGidiyor, DeFacto, ModaCruz and Çiçeksepeti.
• The people: university students in four provinces chosen to reflect different kinds of city: Ankara (political), Istanbul (economic), Kocaeli (industrial) and Antalya (touristic).
• The instrument: a five-point Likert questionnaire built on an earlier framework for e-commerce sites in Sudan, extended with scales derived from the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) and its extensions. It measured eleven factors: functionality, content requirements, information design, page layout and site structure, navigation, interaction, aesthetics, usefulness, attractiveness, efficiency, and trust and security.
• Quality checks: the items were reviewed by experts and by members of a Turkish UX designers' community. Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for the multi-item factors ranged from .744 to .910.
• Fieldwork: because of COVID-19, travel restrictions and campus closures, the questionnaire went online through Google Forms.

In total, 400 questionnaires were distributed and 388 people responded. Of these, 320 (82.5%) said they use e-commerce apps and 68 (17.5%) said they do not. The analysis in SPSS used means and standard deviations, Pearson correlations, regression, t-tests, ANOVA and chi-square tests.

Who answered

Among the 320 app users, Trendyol was the most used app (82.8% of users said they had used it), followed by Hepsiburada (67.8%) and n11 (50.3%). ModaCruz was the least used (2.2%). Most users (63.7%) bought through these apps about once a month. Android users made up 65% and iOS users 35%. About half of the users were aged 18–24, and half of those who gave a region studied in Kocaeli.

What the study found

Every factor moved with the overall experience

All eleven factors were positively and significantly correlated with users' overall experience of e-commerce apps (p < .01, n = 296). Users rated the apps highly on every factor. Most item means were around 4 on the five-point scale.

Navigation led, usefulness trailed

Navigation had the strongest link with the overall experience, followed closely by information design. Page layout and site structure, aesthetics, efficiency and interaction came next. Usefulness had the weakest link of all.

The factors were also strongly linked to one another, especially navigation with page layout, and information design with content and layout. In short, how an app is organised and how easily people move through it went together most closely with a good experience.

Where the apps scored lower

Item-level scores show where students were less satisfied. The highest item was "the structure and layout make the app easy to use" (4.4), followed by "the app is attractive and smooth" (4.3). The lowest items, all at 3.9, were:

• being able to finish tasks without contacting support
• icons that show their purpose clearly
• always knowing where you are in the app
• having different ways to navigate
• a meaningful page layout (the single usefulness item)

Not everyone experienced the apps the same way

• Gender: women rated their experience significantly higher than men (t-test, p = .014).
• Operating system: iOS users rated it higher than Android users (p = .018).
• Age: the three age groups differed (ANOVA, F = 8.52, p < .001). Students aged 18–24 rated their experience higher than both older groups.

What this means for designers and product teams

• Treat navigation as the core of the product. Clear labels, easy movement between related sections and a constant sense of "where am I" were linked most strongly to a good experience. Some of these were also among the lower-scoring items.
• Invest in information design and layout together. These factors scored almost as high as navigation and were closely linked to it. Good structure and good wayfinding work together.
• Don't let looks carry the product. Aesthetics mattered and scored well, but it sat in the same group as structure and efficiency, not above them.
• Reduce the need for support. "Finishing tasks without contacting support" was one of the lowest-rated items. Self-service flows are an obvious place to improve.
• Segment your research. Differences by age, gender and platform suggest that one average user profile hides real variation, even inside a single student population.

Limits to keep in mind

• The sample is students only, and it is uneven. Half of those who gave a region were from Kocaeli. Respondents were reached through student groups during the pandemic, so the results may not hold for all Turkish shoppers.
• Correlation is not causation. The study shows which factors move together with the overall experience. It does not show that improving one factor will change the experience by a given amount.
• Some factors rest on a single item. Usefulness and attractiveness were each measured by one item. This limits how far the "usefulness is weakest" finding can be pushed.
• The data are self-reported and were collected in 2020. Apps and habits have changed since then.

About the original study

Wasef Qadah (2020). Türkiye'de Üniversite Öğrencilerinin, E-Ticaret Kullanıcı Deneyimi Bağlamında Tasarımını Etkileyen Faktörler [Factors Affecting the User Experience Design in the Context of E-Commerce Applications for University Students in Turkey]. Master's thesis, Kocaeli University, Institute of Social Sciences, Visual Communication Design and Advertising. Available through the YÖK National Thesis Centre (YÖK Ulusal Tez Merkezi).