Many studies have shown the significance of a good user interface in affecting a blogger's decision to select a platform for their blog and a reader's decision to read one, and so it is vital that both developers and bloggers need a greater understanding of how they can improve user experience through perfecting their blog interfaces. The aim of this research is to explore the critical factors influencing the quality of blog interfaces and the causal relationships between these factors, enabling blog interfaces to be designed more effectively. Using an approach combining a focus group and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), this study defined eight factors in four dimensions that influence blog interface quality. The results of the DEMATEL analysis identify the key causal factors and effect factors, as well as the causal relationships between the eight factors via the impact-relations map. The research also indicates the most critical causal factors that bloggers and developers should focus on, in order to most effectively improve the quality and attractiveness of blog interfaces.

The blog has become one of the most important virtual spaces where people express their uniqueness and define themselves in social groups. Bloggers place great emphasis on the visual interface of blogs, and both usability and affective factors are important considerations for a successful blog. This study aims to determine major dimensions influencing user affective responses to personalized blog interfaces, and the corresponding design factors that bloggers or platform developers may apply to effectively manipulate them. This study used the Affective/Kansei Engineering approach and two multidimensional scaling algorithms to evaluate the affective responses of users. In conclusion, this study first defined the three dimensions of an affective perceptual space, and their corresponding design factors and affective responses. Secondly, it investigated the relationship between the visual features of 18 typical blogs and the 12 typical affective response vectors in this space. This study also discussed blog interface design guidelines for bloggers and developers. These findings highlight the application potential for developing customized blog template or automated database template generation systems. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS • This study labels the 3D perceptual space, each dimension with its corresponding design factors and