Great article published in Smashing Magazine.
Pay particular attention to item #3. Quality of design is an indicator of credibility.
Various studies have been conducted to find out just what influences people’s perception of a website’s credibility:
- Stanford-Makovsy Web Credibility Study 2002: Investigating What Makes Web Sites Credible Today
- What Makes A Web Site Credible? A Report on a Large Quantitative Study
- The Elements of Computer Credibility
- Elements that Affect Web Credibility: Early Results from a Self-Report Study (Proceedings of ACM CHI 2000 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, v.2, New York: ACM Press)
We don’t know if Fever app is any good, but the sleek user interface and website make a great first impression.
One interesting finding of these studies is that users really do judge a book by its cover… or rather, a website by its design. Elements such as layout, consistency, typography, color and style all affect how users perceive your website and what kind of image you project. Your website should project not only a good image but also the right one for your audience.
Other factors that influence credibility are: the quality of the website’s content, amount of errors, rate of updates, ease of use and trustworthiness of authors.
Check out the full article here.
Ciao,
Robert Scozzari
