Blink and they’re gone - February 26th, 2008

Researchers in Canada have shown that Internet users make snap decisions about the quality of a web page. Maybe you have heard “you never have a second chance to make a good first impression,” but in the virtual world, “you don’t even have a second to make an impression.”The study showed that impressions were made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing a website. “The brain can make flash judgments almost as fast as the eye can take in the information.” 50 milliseconds is roughly the duration of a single frame of standard television footage.Unless the first impression is favorable, guests will be out of your site before they even know who you are or what you offer. The lasting effect of first impressions is known to psychologists as the ‘halo effect’: if you can capture people with attractive design, they are more likely to overlook other minor faults with the site and may rate its actual content more favorably according to the study (”Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye,” www.nature.com).So what are the core elements of an attractive website? Here are some suggestions to better capture guests on your site.

• The amount of graphics on the page should be strictly limited perhaps to a single eye-catching image
• People tend to look at the top-left corner of a page first, so that’s where your logo should go
• Most users also expect to see a search function in the top right
• Make sure your web pages load quickly in browsers; otherwise your potential guest might not stick around long enough to make that coveted first impression.

Another study reported that a website’s design–its overall appearance and ease of navigation–influences not only how much users like the site, but also how much they trust it (”Designing trust”, Stanford Social Innovation Review, winter 2007, p. 17). The way a site is organized has a significant impact on how users view both the site and ultimately the organization’s brand identity.More is riding on your website than you probably ever imagined. In a day when most people will visit your website before they ever show up, can you afford to keep your current website?