Website Building : Keeping your visitors for more than 50 miliseconds

Aug 6, 2006 by Jennifer Farley    No Comments    Posted under: Website Building

A recent study at Carelton University in Ottawa, Canada suggests that the first impression of your website design is made in about one twentieth of second. Fairly mind-boggling stuff and when you consider the length of time you’ve spent designing your site and working out your super-friendly navigation system.

The Canadian team showed volunteer testers a short glimpse of several websites, lasting for only 50 milliseconds. The testers then had to rate the websites in terms of their aesthetic appeal. The researchers found that although impressions were formed incredibly quickly, when the testers looked at the websites for a longer period they came to the same conclusions.

The Halo Effect
The researchers also found that the quickly formed first impressions last because of what is known to psychologists as the “halo effect”.

When the testers believed that a website looked good, this positive feeling spread to other parts of the site such as the content.

Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and lead researcher of the paper warned that companies should take note. “Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors,” she said.

Tips to keep your visitors on the site
So when you’re up against this sort of speedily formed impression, what can you do to keep your first-time visitors on your site? Here are some tips:

1. Your home page is a gateway to the rest of the site. Provide links to popular parts of the site, highlight new content and setup navigation to categories you may have on your site.

2. Flash and video can slow down a page’s loading time, so keep these sort of plug-ins off the home page if possible.

3. A short, snappy, straight to the point explanation of what your site is about should appear in a prominent place on the home page.

4. Ensure that your navigation system is obvious and easy to use. You may have beautifully designed icons, but unless a user can easily understand what they do, you will have some frustrated visitors on your hands.

5. Your navigation system should always be above the fold (you should be able to see it without scrolling down the page). Your visitors should see your logo first and then your navigation immediately after.

6. Visitors like search boxes. It’s easy to add a simple search box to your home page.

7. Don’t make your visitors to for anything unless absolutely necessary, it’s a sure fire way to drive them off your site. Provide interesting content to keep them on your site.

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