How quickly do website users form an impression?

Very quickly is the basic answer. Both in terms of how they feel about the aesthetics, and in terms of how long they take to decide if they're in the right place. Opinions on the former are made much more quickly than on the latter though, it must be said!



I've pulled together a few resources and articles on this topic - what you should know, what you should design for, and how you can test the effectiveness of your web pages in this regard.

First impressions count for web - an article from the BBC summarising the research of Dr Gitte Lindgaard. This research found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage.

5 second usability tests study by Jeff Sauro - Jeff summarises the idea of the five second test and then outlines how he compared results from this quick fire testing with longer, traditional user testing.

5secondtest.com - a cheap or even free online testing tool. It's not without its drawbacks especially when it's free (you don't know who is completing the tests or how seriously they're taking them) but it's worth a try if only to get a feel for what it's all about.

5-Second Tests: Measuring Your Site's Content Pages - article by Christine Perfetti - I've used this technique to good effect in the past and promote it in my writing for the web training. If you write web content it's well worth investigating. While 5secondtest.com is fair enough, testing in person is so much better, I feel.