Stanford Credibility Study

This week, the class talked about what people looked for when determining how authentic a website was. We looked at the article How Do People Evaluate a Website's Credibility? 

In the study, people were to leave comments about the 100 different websites that they evaluated. The table below shows us how frequently certain categories were brought up.

Table 1 from the article

I find it interesting that over 46% determined credibility by design look. How the website looked were the top 2 concerns brought up in the 2,440 comments. I guess in this day and age it is important to keep an updated look or at least have an attractive layout (even back in 2002 when this study was taken!). I'm sure if this study was taken this year in 2015, that percentage would increase. Now that I think about it, it's based on first impressions. It takes a fraction of a second to decide if you like or don't like what you see. So the look and structure can determine whether a potential customer stays to look through your site, or look for another.

The next 4 concerns come to no surprise to me, which is related to information found in the websites. How the website represents itself and how much information is given about them is probably the most important categories to focus on. You can make a website look as pretty as you want, but if the information you provide about your business is not useful or accurate, then it just won't be as successful.