Internet users judge Web sites in less than a blink

[stanchat]

Interesting article about how quickly web users give your site yah or nay.


Internet users judge Web sites in less than a blink (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060117/sc_nm/science_canada_websites_dc)

[soniCron]

Interesting. I was going to post a link to a similar (and somewhat better) article yesterday. You can view it here: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060109/full/060109-13.html

[TimS]

Yeah I'd say that's about how long it takes... 1/20th of a second. There must be a wide variety of individual "tastes" on web design, though... a lot of companies and individuals work long, hard hours on a website that fails my blink-test immediately. Maybe I'm just a web aesthetics snob. Ah well. Too bad my blog is ugly... :( No matter! It's just a blog! Yay!

[arcadetown]

While net users definitely have ADS, 1/20th of a second, come on. That's a news/marketing byline that even Terrin would be proud of. There isn't a single site anywhere that loads that fast. They can definitely decide within seconds though.

Of course looks count but content and function are FAR more important to users IMHO. Put all 3 together and you've got a smart site, such as ArcadeTown is ;)

[maular]

I think what they are getting at is a person's first impression, which takes barely a glance. From this first impression a user would think "cool", "meh", or "urrgh", without really knowing anything about the content or function.

From my own experience I would say this first impression is very important in how long I then spend actually looking on the site for the information I desire. On an "urrgh" site I would give it less than 10 seconds, and even then I may not trust what I see. On a "meh" site I would give it a fair looking over, to see if it actually fits my need. On a "cool" site, I will probably spend the next couple of minutes looking over it, even if I can see it isn't really what I'm after.

[princec]

I give a site less than a second.

Cas :)

[Savant]

Of course looks count but content and function are FAR more important to users IMHO. Put all 3 together and you've got a smart site, such as ArcadeTown is
But the point is that content and function don't matter if the user doesn't click with your design in that first fraction of a second. It's just like dating. You generally decide, at least on a subconcious level, if you want to see this person again at your first glimpse of them.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an excellent book on this called "Blink". He terms the reaction "thin slicing" and now that I've read about it, I feel that he's correct. I find myself making instinctive decisions and reactions to things/people based solely on my first contact with them.

[siread]

I think it makes a big difference if you're trying to sell something, as most of us are. Content and function may be great and you might have an awesome game, but if your site looks amateurish then I think you'll lose a lot of sales.

[Teq]

Same with everything computer related, if it looks cruddy in my eyes, it gets the chop :) Shame thats how I feel about my own site :D