Interior designers' attitudes toward the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) emerged eight years ago, providing interior designers virtually a universe of network-accessible information and a chance to gather information and market themselves to the public. This study was an attempt to establish a base of understanding with respect to how designers use the WWW and what designer sentiment is toward its applications.; The instrument for this study was a survey questionnaire developed by the researcher. This questionnaire included general background information of a random sample of interior designers selected from the professional membership of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). Additional questions investigated attitudes toward the Internet and the WWW. Subjects were selected randomly from among the membership. The data were then analyzed for frequency distributions, independent t test, and correlations to determine any significant differences.; As a result of six specific null hypothesis tests, three independent variables were found to show a statistically significant relationship to attitudes toward the WWW. This finding suggested a positive attitude toward the WWW among interior designers who had experience with other software packages such as word processing and billing, who have used or now use the WWW, and who work for/in large firms.; Other findings showed no significant differences between gender and age. In addition, there were not enough cases of interior designers whose firms utilized computers to run the independent t test. However, results may still be used to determine trends among interior designers whose firms use computers and thus hold more positive attitudes toward the WWW.; Results of the Pearson correlations between knowledge and attitude toward the WWW suggest that as designers' knowledge concerning the use of the WWW increases, their attitude regarding its usefulness may also increase.