According to an article published in Nature users can form a judgement of a website in the blink of an eye.
In an experiment users were flashed web pages for just 50 milliseconds and their opinions based on these images tallied closely with judgements formed after much longer exposure times.
People enjoy being right, so continuing to use a website that gave a good first impression helps to ‘prove’ to themselves that they made a good initial decision.
This research confirms what usability folk like Jakob Neilsen and others have been saying for a long time:
- Make sure your pages load quickly
- Limit the amount of clutter and graphics on a page
- Put important information in ‘conventional’ places, for example the logo on the top left and useful links or adverts on the right hand side
- For pity’s sake, avoid flash intro animations
- Make your website look good
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