Digital Evangelism Issues

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.