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What do they think about your site?
It is said that people make very rapid assessments of people, situations, magazine covers, websites – just about anything. See Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Quite remarkably, in two seconds, our brains will compute a range of variables and give us an instant impression, which is often quite accurate.
The concept of website credibility was put forward by Professor B J Fogg of Stanford University, in his book Persuasive Technology. Some of the conclusions he reaches are online.
Fogg calls it the web credibility framework, with these categories as contributory to an overall credibility:
Site operator:
- is respected
- is nonprofit
- shows photos of organization’s members
- posts rules regarding content contribution or other issues relating to use of site
Site contents:
- is regularly updated
- available in more than one language
- lists authors’ credentials for articles
Functionality:
- can search past content
- pages are tailored to individual users’ needs
- offers site links to outside materials and sources
Information design:
- site arranged in a way that makes sense to users
- any ads are clearly differentiated from content
Technical:
- search feature powered by Google or respected search system
- site is rarely down
- links all work properly
Graphical design:
- looks professionally designed
- photographs of people are of good quality
Interaction design:
- Site matches users’ expectations about what they should do at each step, to accomplish their goals at the site.
It is obviously crucial that any evangelistic site should appear credible to its visitors. Please add your thoughts using the ‘comment’ link below.
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This is a helpful list. In a concise form it captures the more important elements that lead to a website’s street cred. Now all we need is a handy self-rating page with the same elements on it we can rate 1-10, to give us some sort of overall sense of where our website stands. Thanks for the post, Tony.
Dave