Web Users Judge Sites in the Blink of an Eye

dogbolter writes "Nature.com is reporting on a study by Canadian researcher Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University that visitors to a webpage can make up their minds about the quality of the page within just 50 milliseconds." From the article: "We all know that first impressions count, but this study shows that the brain can make flash judgments almost as fast as the eye can take in the information. The discovery came as a surprise to some experts. "My colleagues believed it would be impossible to really see anything in less than 500 milliseconds," says Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa, who has published the research in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology. Instead they found that impressions were made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing."

Comments

Once again a case for article moderation

[Jugalator]

*shakes head*

Question

[Fiachra06]

I may be asking for it here but I always wondered this. I've been reading /. for years but only recently started posting and my question is, why do some people get so angry about dupes? They can be a bit annoying, yes but I've read some really horrible and insulting remaks to the editors in the past because of dupes. I mean people seem furious. It's like the editors kicked their children and stole the ice-cream while delivering the household bills. Have I missed something that makes this crime so heinous.

Re:Question

[ceeam]

Well, actually I don't have much problems with dupes on some _important_ topics. Stuff that matters, you know. It's when such ... uhm, how do I say it... crap snippets get _duped_ whereas many, many readers think they should not have been posted even the first time, it's this that makes us somewhat angry.

Re:Question

[BenjyD]

I think it's frustration, really. Dupes happen quite frequently and every time potential easy solutions are pointed out by readers.

Most people are only here for the discussion these days, anyway, the article summaries are generally either poorly written, incorrect or confused.

Re:Question

[mysticwhiskey]

Dupes imply that slashdot submitters don't actually bother to read Slashdot

It's not the submitter's fault, rather the editors who post the story submissions.

Re:Question

[Tim C]

There are a number of reasons; here are some, in no particular order:

1) There are people whose job it is to edit and approve submissions; these people are paid to do this. Some people find it annoying when people are apparently not doing a very good job of something.

2) Every dupe posted is a potential new and interesting article rejected.

3) Some people pay a subscription to the site; some of these people feel (rightly or wrongly) that as they're paying money, they have a right to expect a certain level of quality and profesionalism, and feel that the number and frequency of dupes does not meet this level.

4) It's primarily a technical problem, and the audience is tech-heavy; thus many of us can think of (and sometimes suggest) potential solutions, and it's frustrating that nothing seems to be being done about it

5) Many of us think (rightly or wrongly) that the major strength of the site is in the discussions that the articles generate - that is, in the comments that we post. Some people think (rightly or wrongly) that as they therefore provide most of the value of the site, they should have some kind of say in how it works, or at least have their concerns and complaints acknowledged.

6) As you note, there are many, many complaints about dupe articles, yet I have not seen any official reply to any of these. While it's entirely possible that I've just missed it, it does seem that our comments are falling on deaf ears. People don't like to feel ignored.

Now, there's no excuse for all the vitriol, but some people are really getting frustrated about things. Between the lack of any apparent action or even response about dupes (and **Beatles-Beatles posts, apparent moderation abuse, Roland P, etc), some people are over-reacting and lashing out. The rest of us, well, we just wish that something would be done about it, or at least that there would be a public announcement (or a even FAQ entry) stating the official position of the editors, and what (if anything) they intend to do about it.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

It probably is a PITA for the editors to weed out all the redundancy though. All we read are the stories that make it. Imagine reading 10x the stories (most of them alike), and then having to remember which one you actually posted to slashdot. That being said, a 0-day dupe or a yester-day dupe really shows lack of communication between ./ editors...

Re:Question

[Flaming Babies]

Or it could be that the poor editors who are wading through so many submissions lose track of what's been approved to go online recently. There is more than one editor, you know, so it would be easy to miss something that another editor has already done.

I don't buy it.
There's a search function. Editors can use it too.
In the 2 hours between new articles, how tough would it have been to type 'judge 50 ms' into the search?
I understand they have to wade through a lot of submissions,
but a 10 second check after they've picked a "winner" shouldn't be too much to ask.
Dupes really don't bother me much. I'm not here every day and never go back to see what I missed...
but I just don't think that's a valid excuse.

Re:What about...

[antifoidulus]

Which is why slashcode really should add a check in to see if the link has been already used. I mean, come on, this isn't even a different link, there is no excuse for that. After it was coded it wouldn't even take the editors any extra time, if they hit "submit" it could flash up a warning saying that link was already used. They could still override it if they wanted, but it would spare us at least some dupes.

Re:In other news...

[xtracto]

Yeah, it is called Plagiarism, and it happens a lot during slashdot dupes.

Shame on the plagiarist

Comic Sans

[BibelBiber]

Whenever I see Comic Sans it's pretty much worthless on academic information. Problem is, many unis still think it's cool to use it for application forms such as family accomodation. It's hard to take such things serious.

Re:slash is lame-ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Fix the damn boring green defaults.

• Fixing the boring green defaults has nothing to do with the "problem" you describe.
• A lot of us value the fact that slashdot isn't preocupied with colors and looks, like gradient-whore digg.com whose interface is so flashy they forgot to make it work well
• Slashdot isn't a news source, it's a news aggregator. It only has to keep up with the curve, it doesn't aim to be 100% bleeding edge
• What's really hurting slashdot in my opinion is the amount of self-important twats who in every story tell us all how they hate the modern slashdot - it lowers the tone and annoys people. The way to solve is is not to mod pricks like this guy up, so not only do they not get to bitch so loud, but also they won't get mod points as often (though they will continue to post despite their views and may get points anyway).
• Fuck off

What do the editors read?

[AlpineR]

That's an interesting question. All of us habitually read Slashdot while we're avoiding our own work. But if Slashdot is your work, what do you read between tasks? All these dupes are evidence that they don't actually read this site, so where do they go?