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A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION?
Stanford’s Web credibility project reveals that the secret to repeat Web site traffic may be in the first click.
— by Sue Bowness
B.J. Fogg is a bit disappointed in humanity. As director of the Stanford University Persuasive Technology lab, a research group that creates insight into "captology" or how computers can be designed to change what people think and do, he recently completed a pioneering study on Web site credibility. Based on an earlier survey by Consumer WebWatch (a part of Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports) called A Matter of Trust: What Users Want From Web Sites, Fogg had hoped that the results of his own research would affirm the responses given by those who placed the onus for Web site credibility on thoughtful aspects like privacy policy or correcting misleading information. Instead he discovered a disconnect between the factors people claimed to use in determining credibility and the factors they actually used. In the case of the Internet, the number one factor by which people actually judge Web site credibility was by their first impression of the visual design.
"I would like to think that when people go on the Web they’re very tough integrators of information, they compare sources, they think really hard," says Fogg, "but the truth of the matter — and I didn’t want to find this in the research but it’s very clear — is that people do judge a Web site by how it looks. That’s the first test of the Web site. And if it doesn’t look credible or it doesn't look like what they expect it to be, they go elsewhere. It doesn’t get a second test. And it’s not so different from other things in life. It’s the way we judge automobiles and politicians.
"Humans are cognitive misers. We don’t want to think so we take these shortcuts to evaluation, and surface appearance is a shortcut. That was a surprise to me, and honestly a disappointment but I’m out of denial about that now and I just put that up front, you’ve got to deal with the issue of visual design."
Fogg, whose study is titled How Do People Evaluate a Web Site’s Credibility? Results from a Large Study, invited more than 2,600 average people to rate the credibility of Web sites in ten content areas, including finance, health, travel, and e-commerce. The research was conducted in partnership with Consumer WebWatch. A parallel study by usability and design agency Sliced Bread Design, LLC, gave the same questions to a more select group of experts to see if they were more discerning. For the most part, the expert didn't go much deeper than their novice counterparts.
Besides being fickle in deciding on a Web site’s credibility, those same users are quick to abandon a site if it proves unreliable. Says Fogg, "The credibility of a Web site determines at the end of the day whether people use the Web site or not. If it’s not credible, they’re going to find a replacement for it. What’s unusual about the Web, unlike other media or other experiences where credibility matters? Let’s say you're shopping at a store and the salesperson is telling you something you don't quite believe. The salesperson may lose credibility but you're probably going to stay in that store and finish your task. If you’re on the Web and you suspect that the Web site is giving you bad information you're going to leave and go somewhere else. The switching cost on the Web is close to zero. It’s the first time that switching an information source has been so easy, so having credibility is vital to hanging on to the people who actually manage to arrive at your site."
So what this all translates to is simple, if a company wants to create a credible impression, it has to have a well-designed site. Although this finding was clearly the top factor, there were others that visitors consider as indicators of credibility. "We tested a range of sites and one that did really well was called InteliHealth.com. We wondered 'what did they do right?' so we went back and looked at their site and the top corner of every one of their pages had the Harvard Medical School name and logo. So what they did is they leveraged the credibility of the Harvard name in order to make their Web site more credible. There are groups that are going about putting their seals of approval on certain Web sites. I think people will eventually learn to look for the seals that matter."
While Web site credibility may seem like a new consideration, clearly for many companies it is simply an extension of practices they maintained previous to the Internet. As long as they maintain similar standards online, their Web sites should do well, because the good news is that once a site has made a good impression, visitors are going to treat it like a trusted friend, and judge it much less critically as long as it keeps delivering on that first impression. Fogg explains, "Even if you get past the visual design test, when people click around and experience the site they’re going through what I call my "prominence-interpretation" theory — they're noticing things and evaluating. And that's adding up and when it reaches a certain threshold — and we don't have any data to support this but I believe [the visitors] are making those cumulative interpretations — once they’ve reached a certain threshold it’s credible and they stop scrutinizing as carefully. Then there would have to have a really big problem in order to get them to question it."
Although Web site credibility may seem like an obvious science, the truth is that certain sites do gain reputation and traffic for a reason, and while the credibility aspect is obvious when articulated, it’s not something that actively crosses every designer’s mind. As Fogg concludes, perhaps that’s the problem. "It’s almost so important that people don't notice it."
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