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How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?
theduck writes "Ever suspected (or feared) that web users are mostly mindless sheep evaluating your website more by the eye candy than your carefully crafted content? Well, it appears you were right. A study resulting from a collaboration between Consumer Webwatch and The Stanford Pervasive technology Lab reports that even though consumers say that they look for content first when evaluating the credibility of a website, they actually focus primarily on design look and information design/structure (i.e. ease of navigation). Of course, the study's methodology might have something to do with the results..."
(Finally, after years of lurking here I post . . . )
As the lead researcher on the web credibility paper, I can say that we were a bit surprised and disappointed that people were so influenced by the design look of the web site. We'd hoped people would be more rigorous. But the data said otherwise.
Not *everyone* focused so heavily on the visual design. Some people in the study said design didn't matter. Yet the reality is that most people evaluate politicians and TV news in this same superficial way: style over substance.
We didn't include this variable in the study, but it's likely that people with "high need for cognition" (e.g., folks who spend weekends doing research or reading slashdot) evaluate sites differently than people who spend the weekend watching TV.
Beyond the psych variables, web cred evaluation also hinges on user task and context and a bunch of other factors that have never been studied. The web cred study we did with Consumers Union is a broad overview -- and certainly not the final word.
http://validator.w3.org/
Go there now... Make your site compliant... Resistance is futile... (Slashdot doesn't pass)
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
People seem to think that design is all about making it look pretty. It's not. It's as important as the IA behind it. What's the point in having good AI if the layout is design confusingly, and mixes the wrong elements together? or it's unclear where the sections are in a page etc?