I am doing my honours dissertation project and need to find reliably sourced data as to how long a user spends making an evaluation of a website.
I am looking for the time a user spends looking before deciding a website is fake/real/rubbish/not what they want.
I have heard everything from 0.5 secs to 5 secs but need data to show where along this sliding scale is most reliable. So if anyone knows of any relevant research or has read somewhere about this I would be chuffed if you could point me the right way.
I have tried google but its a nightmare. Also I hope this is in the right section was having probs placing it!
I would probably dive away from the web design aspect and perhaps look at cognitive science (and psychological research) and how long it takes people to form judgements. My personal view is that most judgements are preconceived in the subconscious based on various factors before you even visit the website, and therefore any specific time-frame is negligible at best. Most on-site judgements are made in respect to the design (not really much value there as it’s subjective), the content (again emotionally subjective) and the value or validity of the content is probably irrespective of a set time-frame purely on the basis of those preconceived ideas taking presidence until factual justification overrides it… however I can’t back this up with any research.
Interesting but I don’t agree because you could have a very optimistic expectation of a website, go to it and find it has a godawful UI and leave immediately, or you could have a negative expectation and never go to it. So the only element that creates the desirable result of a visitor staying on a site is the landing page, and therefore the landing page design matters a LOT and tons of research has gone into finding the best way of creating them.
I once read 3.1 seconds as the average amount of time a visitor will spend trying to make sense of a page before moving on, I’ll see if I can find the source.
Perhaps I was exaggerating the lack of impact due to pre-conceived expectations however I stand by my main point that the timing starts upon the second that someone is made aware of the website (the justification for it may alter when they reach the page but it’s still a factor which isn’t technically measurable)
Quite, and therefore out of our control and it’s pointless worrying about it. What you can control is the UI and how you design it will influence how long people stay on site.
I can’t find the source for my number but I wouldn’t worry about that either. If you design somthing simple and familiar, people will be able to make sense of it quickly and you’ll be fine. You can always split test.
My actual project is about phishing and the fact that we make a judgement about a websites legitimacy within a number of seconds of visiting.
My project is looking at design elements which are overlooked in this first decision stage. The first phase of my testing includes showing people screenshots of popular websites some of which have elements that have been altered. I need the data to know how long to show a user the screenshot before asking if it was real or fake.
I understand it is difficult to measure as a user often has a preconceived knowledge of what they require. However if you are goal oriented and are looking for a site for say dining plates and you come across a site for designing dining plates then you will maybe hit the back button slower than say if you find a site for tectonic plates or something like that.
My idea hinges on people making snap judgements once a site is in context. I simply need some sort of research to indicate the average time it takes to make a snap judgement such as this.
Well, since the only things that can influence ‘legitimacy’ are the visitors preconceptions, which are usually out of our control except in the case of email lists (including phishing), and the way the site actually looks and there you’re talking about ‘landing page’ design, just Google that phrase or ‘emetrics’.
Presumably though, if the phishing email was good enough to get someone to the landing page, then the job of convincing them of the legitimacy of the landing page should be all that much easier right?
I think this is something quite different from the preconceptions issue, it’s about targeted traffic, relevance and conversions.
We have forever to be honest, I no doubt designing will ever go away… Considering happiness is revolved around design itself, and we all want happiness… Not one person on earth does not want it.
In regards to phishing, I wouldn’t say it’s much of a factor… once they click the email URL they already have the pre-conception that the email was legitimate (and by association the website), and most phishing sites don’t have unique designs, they almost always mirror the original source website (like PayPal) to fool people into thinking it’s the right location. In the case of phishing I would say that design accuracy would only be in how closely it matches the site it’s trying to spoof.
Yes but in that way I have been looking at phishing websites that are not perfect mimics of the original website and yet do succeed at fooling people. I want to know the areas of a website if any we first recognise as being forged. In order to do this I need to show people a screenshot for a set period. I need a number for this so as to show there is reasoning behind this.
I think you want to develop a tool for searching errors in webpages, I would like to suggest you to promote your business with the keywords, “Is your website error free, check it here” and then you can send error reports to Web masters. Also prefer personal mail for sending such reports.
