To Investigate the Influence of UX/UI Design Features (Visual Appeal, Navigation, Personalisation) on Customer Experience and Impact on Purchase Decision in Food Delivery Applications in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The rapid growth of food delivery applications has transformed consumption behaviour in urban areas, particularly in emerging digital economies such as Cambodia. As competition intensifies among platforms, user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design have become critical determinants of customer engagement and purchasing behaviour. This study investigates the influence of UX/UI design features particularly, visual appeal, navigation quality, and personalisation on customer experience and purchase decision intention among users of food delivery applications in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Guided by the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) framework and supported by UX Theory, the Expectation–Confirmation Model (ECM), and a modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the study adopts a quantitative research design. Data were collected from 516 respondents, of which 501 valid responses were analysed using SPSS and Python. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, correlation, regression, and mediation analyses were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings reveal that visual appeal, navigation quality, and personalisation each exert a significant positive influence on customer experience. Customer experience, in turn, significantly influences purchase decision intention. Moreover, mediation analysis confirms that customer experience partially mediates the relationships between UX/UI design features and purchase decisions. These results highlight the central role of experiential evaluations in translating interface design quality into behavioural outcomes.

The study contributes to the literature by extending SOR-based UX research to the Cambodian food delivery context and offers practical insights for platform designers and managers seeking to enhance digital customer experience and purchase performance.