Your snap decisions are spot on

January 10th, 2007

I’ve mentioned several times before, users can make a decision as to whether they like your website in well under 1 second. There’s an interesting article on New Scientist website which looks at how people can make accurate judgements in a fraction of a second. The example tests a group of people looking at images of crosses, all of which lean the same way, except one. The volunteers have to pick out the misaligned cross and the test interestingly showed that generally, people had a higher success rate when they relied on their subconscious and only had a fraction of a second to pick out the misalinged cross. So, use your instincts and have a look:

Did you get it? The misaligned cross is the one in the middle, second in from the left. It’s pretty hard the first time you do it but as your brain is trained what to look for, you can instantly pick them out time after time.

Think of the hundreds, thousands [tens of thousands?] of websites you have visited. You are constantly assessing what works and what you like and your brain is building a database of “successful website traits”. Experienced web users have the uncanny ability to look at a website for an incredibly short period of time and give a fairly accurate assessment of how useful that website is. This is going to have a major impact of the success or failure of your site, so it pays to do your user research, pay focus groups and if you have experienced surfers at hand - go with your gut in some cases.

The challenge is how to be innovative, yet present the information in a way your visitors can relate to and get on with.