Datasheet

DESIGN FOR HACKERS
16
How design affects credibility on the web
In a study done at Stanford University, B. J. Fogg and his colleagues presented participants
with two websites and asked them to rank the sites’ credibility, as well as provide
comments about what they based their rankings upon.
When the results were processed, Fogg found that design had an overwhelming in uence in
participants’ ratings of the credibility of the websites in the study. An incredible 46 percent of
all comments about the credibility of the sites were related to design. Participants said
trustworthy sites were “more professional looking,” had a “higher-quality look and feel,” or
“just [looked] more credible.” Some participants even went so far as to speci cally mention
the color schemes or choices of fonts in sites that looked credible to them.
Although well-designed sites enjoyed high credibility ratings, sites that were poorly
designed were viewed as less credible. Participants didn’t trust a site if it was “not very
professional looking,” if the “design [was] sloppy,” or if it looked “like it was put together
in  ve minutes.”
But just as drawing a pretty pony doesn’t make you a good artist, creating a pretty website
doesn’t make you a good designer. Participants were skeptical of sites that looked
inappropriately polished, giving negative comments suggesting that certain sites looked as if
they were “designed by a marketing team.”
The design of a site has to be appropriate, and considering all the layers that make a good
design is critical in creating effective designs.
Aside from the visual look of sites being important to their perceived credibility, the results
of Fogg’s study also suggested that some of the more subtle aspects of design also were
extremely important. Comments about the information design and structure of the sites in
the study were the second most common, comprising over 28 percent of all the
comments processed. Participants praised some sites for being “well organized,” while
criticizing other sites because the “information [was] badly presented.”
So, together, the visual look of a site – along with the way the information was organized –
accounted for nearly 75 percent of all comments about whether participants trusted a site
or not. Moreover, the participants’ comments were sensitive to design that was
inappropriate for the site in question.
Users know when you’re drawing ponies, so to create successful design, you need to
understand how the layers of design interact.
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