First Impressions Count in Website Design

Andy King writes "Web designers have as little as 50 milliseconds to capture the interest of potential customers, according a new report by researchers at Carleton University. Through the halo effect, first impressions can influence subsequent judgments of website credibility and buying decisions."

Trupe!

[VC]

I could tell in less than 50 milliseconds as well....

Re:Trupe!

[eurleif]

Trupe? Don't you mean tripe?

Re:Trupe!

[repvik]

He meant "Troupe", as in the Troupe of Monkeys randomly hitting "Accept" on submissions. Sometimes they miss the "Accept"-button, and press the "Accept Several Times"-button. This is how the phenomenon of Slashdot Dupes actually works.

Re:RAID

[Baricom]

If half of /. is taken out by a nuke then it still survives.

Isn't that what digg is for?

Re:RAID

[wdd1040]

Yeah, but Digg's comment system sucks.

Once they get that figured out, I'm out of here as well.

The solution

[mwvdlee]

Just 50ms to make an impression is very short, so Slashdot just does the logical thing; they're giving it 150ms!

Re:The solution

[Pieroxy]

After three posts, I got the message and I finally read the article ;)

It is utterly crap. While flashing a page in front of a user for 50ms is enough for the user to make a decision whether it's crap or not, it's not the same as saying that the user made his decision in 50ms. The user made his decision probably well after a long full second had elapsed. Many things could have happened in the meantime, modifying the user's first impression.

--
Krazy Kat [ignatzmouse.net]

Re:The solution

[ArsenneLupin]

Similar jokes have been made while it was still a dupe.

Re:Trupe!

[arivanov]

This is a record as far as I know. Dupes - yes. But tripple posting of the same garbage is a bit too much to my liking. Even on a slow going Friday morning.

Re:Trupe!

[Baricom]

Sorry, no record [slashdot.org] this time.

Re:Trupe!

[falzer]

Those who forget Slashdot posts are doomed to repeat them.

Re:Trupe!

[SolitaryMan]

Those who forget Slashdot posts are doomed to repeat them.

Those who remember are doomed to watch them repeating.

Re:Trupe!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they sure do support their trupes!

Re:Trupe!

[Hieronymus Howard]

Everybody should get busy and resubmit this story. Let's see if the editors will post it four times.

Re:Trupe!

[Da Web Guru]

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168794&cid =14070720 [slashdot.org]

I believe that it might be 6. However, to be fair, it really is more like 4 + 2, but they are all talking about the same thing.

Ric Romero Says:

[Potor]

If you make a webpage, remember that people will judge them quickly.

This is NOT a Trupe! RTFA - Original Research

[Crisses]

This isn't a dupe/trupe. The former article was a synopsis. This one actually gives the real research. I was looking for the original research on the earlier article but I didn't want to pay the publishers for it. This article gives the methods, the pages viewed, the results. That's far better than the first two /. postings!

Re:This is NOT a Trupe! RTFA - Original Research

[proggoddess]

Wouldn't the original article link normally be posted in a Slashback?

Can Anyone Help Me?

[Hosiah]

Can anyone tell me how long my web page has to capture the interest of a visitor? I've been searching everywhere for this data but cannot seem to track it down.

Re:Can Anyone Help Me?

[Gleng]

I had a quick search and found a few articles you may be interested in:

First Impressions Count in Website Design [slashdot.org]
Web Users Judge Sites in the Blink of an Eye [slashdot.org]
Web Users Judge Sites Instantly [slashdot.org]

Hope that helps.

my first impressions tell me

[Saven Marek]

my first impressions tell me this is not just a DUPE but a TRIPE!

Re:my first impressions tell me

[paulthomas]

Not even a tripe. Tripe. Full Stop.

Even the first time the article hit the front page, my first & lasting impression was that this research amounted to plain common sense.

Re:my first impressions tell me

[c0dedude]

Don't read or eat it, you will vomit and lose much of your food points.

Re:my first impressions tell me

[tehshen]

Does that mean that the time limit is 150 milliseconds now?

Triple?

[Life700MB]

In other news, Slashdot readers needed 50 miliseconds to realize that this is the third time this very same history is posted.


--
Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

Re:Triple?

[ericdano]

And people pay for subscriptions to these triple postings........very very sad.

Re:Triple?

[ciroknight]

Very stupid people considering adblock does everything subscriptions would do, except seeing the story early..

But then again, if I want to see a story early, I go to Digg.com.

First Impressions Count...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

... But on slashdot you get to have a second and even a third chance to get it right!

stop

[Romancer]

Stop it.

bad repeat, bad!

look at what you've done, now go outside. Get.

But if they don't have broadband...

[MichaelSmith]

...you have a whole 50 seconds for them to take the page in as it loads.

This article has been around so many times I have now thought of something to post against it.

dear god, make it stop

[Hellad]

I don't complain about dupes, but this is ridiculous. I have to wonder if this is a sick joke. A third time? I don't even pay and I feel like demanding my money back...

CmdrTaco

[m00nun1t]

I'm expecting CmdrTaco to post a dupe of one of his "letters to slashdot" soon.

Re:CmdrTaco

[jb.hl.com]

When I read those, I instantly think of Dr Breen [wikipedia.org] from Wikipedia.

"Dear Dr Taco,
Why do you post so many fucking dupes?
Yours sincerely,
A concerned Slashdotter.

Your question touches on many basic biological urges, such as to smash the faces in of anyone who posts stories more than once..."

Re:CmdrTaco

[jb.hl.com]

Dr Breen from Wikipedia. Yes.

I meant Half-Life 2. Although a Wikipedia game sounds fun.

Re:CmdrTaco

[BJH]

Easy mistake to make, I guess...

Re:CmdrTaco

[jb.hl.com]

I do detect a bit of a Breen vibe from Jimmy Wales. Except Breen didn't do porno before starting his reign of terror...

Re:CmdrTaco

[rjshields]

ROFL! Where are my mod points when I need them?

Re:CmdrTaco

[iworm]

Don't you mean his "Letter's too Slishdot"?

Re:CmdrTaco

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

If it's a dupe, it would be "Letters Two Slashdot"

Re:CmdrTaco

[jellomizer]

To be fair this one at least points to a different web site. But they should really try doing something like this...
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SLASHDOT_ARTICLES WHERE ARTICLE_DESC LIKE '%the link name%'
and
SELECT ARTICLE_HEADING, ARTICLE_DESC FROM SLASHDOT_ARTICLES WHERE ARTICLE_DESC LIKE '%important key words%'

Can't tell.

[mondoterrifico]

Man i've been reading Slashdot for 4 years now, and I still can't tell its shit.
:)

Re:Can't tell.

[m50d]

Tell its shit from what?

Dupe? No! Three Times!

[LadyLucky]

Yikes, is that a record? I knew it was a dupe within 50 milliseconds.

A dupe here and a dupe there....

[tekrat]

A dupe here and a dupe there....
And pretty soon you're talking *real* repeats!

Re:A dupe here and a dupe there....

[value_added]

A dupe here and a dupe there....
And pretty soon you're talking *real* repeats!

Think of it as an "Encore Presentation."

It's like HBO original programming. After a round of repeats, we get a new episode, then a repeat, then a new episode, then the season goes into limbo and the Slashdot DVD goes on sale.

Third's a charm

[Ardeocalidus]

Good for us with AD- Wait, what's that? Ah, crap.

Are we the victims of some kind of joke?

[loic_2003]

Seriously, do you think this is some Andy Kaufman prank where many members of the public are the victim and the only people who find the joke funny are the moderators? It's just getting silly now.

Re:Are we the victims of some kind of joke?

[Stan Vassilev]

To get it to the level of an Andy Kaufman they'd have to post at least once/daily for the rest of our lives.

Re:Are we the victims of some kind of joke?

[pipingguy]

...members of the public are the victim and the only people who find the joke funny are the moderators

Today I am a moderator (not in this thread, obviously) and I fail to see the funny.

Ok guys

[tannhaus]

This had to be on purpose. They're taking the piss with us. No one is that incompetent. They're having a joke at our expense, so just let it ride

What i tell you three times is true.

[smithberry]

As Lewis Carroll said in The Hunting of the Snark

What i tell you three times is true.

so, must be true then.
See for example
http://www.literature.org/authors/carroll-lewis/th e-hunting-of-the-snark/chapter-01.html [literature.org]
Off topic, but by now no one cares.

Re:What i tell you three times is true.

[Itchy Rich]

As Lewis Carroll said in The Hunting of the Snark What i tell you three times is true. so, must be true then.

It's not true.

It's not true.

It's not true.

Thought this was a joke, till I realised...

[john-da-luthrun]

...it only takes Slashdot editors 50 milliseconds to forget each story they post.

Then...

[quenting]

Web designers have as little as 50 milliseconds to capture the interest of potential customers

...50 ms later, they can re-post and have some extra 50ms, then, 50 ms later, they can re-post and have some extra 50ms. So overall, it should be 150ms.

Web Search Optimisation

[BarryNorton]

"I know this story's already been duped, and you've made submitter links 'nofollow', but here's a submission linking an optimisation site - you know you can't resist those..."

What to do.

[ceeam]

I wonder if we all submit this link as a story (several times each?), will /. editors finally get a point?

Re:What to do.

[Feanturi]

if we all submit this link as a story (several times each?), will /. editors finally get a point?

No, but I think you may have stumbled upon a sure-fire way to get a submission posted.

I just did

[theolein]

I just submitted this link as a a story.

My text:Today, slashdot really outdid itself. http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 1/20/0611209 [slashdot.org] That story, on the 50 millisecond website appreciation, got posted as a story no less than 3 times. Rob wrote a huge article about how submitters should make decent articles, watch their links, cross their t's, dot their i's (but he doesn't care about spelling because he can't spell himself), and I for one, would dearly love to know what his excuse for duplica

Trupe!

[m50d]

I could tell in less than 50 milliseconds as well...

Re:Trupe!

[m50d]

That was the point...

I didn't read the article...

[OwlWhacker]

After 50 milliseconds looking at the page, I made a nearly instantaneous judgement to leave the site.

*click*...so put your little hand in mine...

[PontifexPrimus]

...there ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb...

Overheard in Slashdot editors' office

[VampireByte]

CowboyNeal: Hey, so it's really cold out there today, huh?

CmdrTaco: So how much do we owe you for the pizza?

Pizza Delivery Guy: FOR THE THIRD TIME, YES IT'S COLD OUT THERE, AND YOU OWE ME $15.95!!!

Slashdot editors being duped?

[Simon Brooke]

Could it be possible, does anyone think, that some mischievous and malicious persons are reading stories on Slashdot, waiting a day or two, and then submitting exactly the same articles back to Slashdot in order to dupe the editors into looking incompetent?

Surely not.

It does make me wonder what the editors read

[bgfay]

I don't get how this could happen a third time. Let's hope that this is a joke. Otherwise, it really would make a good topic for the next About Slashdot article. Wow. I've been reading for a long time and haven't seen this happen before. Weird. I think that this is some of the reason why editors and CmdrTaco get so much crap hurled at them. If you give people the ammunition, they're likely to fire it on you sooner or later.

All that said, it's not the end of the world. It just makes the site look sloppy and haphazard rather than polished. In many ways, it's kind of the stigma that Linux has faced when compared to Windows. Oh well.

Re:It does make me wonder what the editors read

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I never used to have anything against the editors, but they seem to have gotten more unprofessional over time. Usually it's the opposite.

I just had a deja vu....simultaneously

[digitaldc]

In 49 milliseconds I figured this was Redundant.

Didn't believe this crap story the first two times

[gadlaw]

50 milliseconds? Right. stories like this give science a bad name. People decide quickly whether they like a website or not. Probably true, for some people. Probably untrue for other people. 50 milliseconds isn't hardly enough time for the headers to load up so how can you possibly decide if you like a site or not? What if you like image heavy sites? Takes more time than that to load images up. How does this fact mesh with the ridiculous assertion? It doesn't. What statistical models did this 'study' use. S

At 9:09 AM before the first cup of coffee

[egghat]

/me understands ...

Time to post that one [slashdot.org] again ;-)

Bye egghat.

Posted Tuesday by ScuttleMonkey

[AlpineR]

Grab your +5 comments here [slashdot.org] for some instant karma. Well, the editors tripe the articles, we might as well tripe the comments...

Three times the charm...

[hkmwbz]

...but it's what defines Slashdot! Just like bad spelling and grammar [slashdot.org]! So they do it on purpose. And this time to prove a point [slashdot.org]!

If they stopped posting dupes and trupes/tripes, the site would die!

:-)

In related news...

[windowpain]

Research has shown that Slashdot editors now may need to post an article at least three times before it makes a strong enough impression to keep them from posting it again.

So it's the STORY that's a Dupe?

[theJML]

We all know the story is a dupe... what's funny is the fact that the story was only up three times, the number of duplicate comments telling everyone that the story is a dupe has to be over 50+ by now.

---

Besides, in Soviet Russia, the Webpage Only Takes 50ms to Judge You!

Which proves..

[William Robinson]

the Carleton University web site must be impressive :)

Re:Ah my god

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Hah. Do what I do, resubmit every dupe you see. Eventually I'll get an article posted that way...

Re:Ah my god

[hackstraw]

Hah. Do what I do, resubmit every dupe you see. Eventually I'll get an article posted that way...

Now that does not seem that effective because this is only the 3rd or 4th trupe that I have seen here on slashdot, and I'm more than a regular, closer to obsessive-compulsive.

Everytime it happens, I post a link like this [google.com] where I can find the other articles in less than 10 seconds, and I don't even work as an "editor" for slashdot.

My conclusions have been 1) they do not care 2) they like the negative attention 3)

Re:Ah my god

[1u3hr]

Everytime it happens, I post a link like this where I can find the other articles in less than 10 seconds, and I don't even work as an "editor" for slashdot.

Even simpler: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=50+millisecon d s [slashdot.org], by typing the words "50 milliseconds" in ot Slashdot's search.

Or try http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=radio [slashdot.org] for another.

Re:Ah my god

[Itchy Rich]

My conclusions have been 1) they do not care 2) they like the negative attention 3) they have not read my posts, nor have they learned how to write a working search engine or use a working one called Google.

I think the most realistic explanation is that they, like most of us, aren't 100% attentive at all times. They're human, they've got other shit to do.

Perhaps what might be handy is something that isn't human, for example a bit of code that checks links and/or keywords for likely duplicates before a

Re:Ah my god

[pmc]

I think the most realistic explanation is that they, like most of us, aren't 100% attentive at all times

Or that they are 100% inattentive all of the time.

We're not asking for attentitiveness - we aren't asking for anything actually. We do reserve the right to take the mickey out of the apparent complete inability to use a search engine.

Re:Ah my god

[1u3hr]

I think the most realistic explanation is that they, like most of us, aren't 100% attentive at all times. They're human, they've got other shit to do.

Like their jobs -- wait

Re:Ah my god

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

It's a trupe. That already means it must be something they like. It's like proven.

Re:Ah my god

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Ban you for resubmitting articles that have already appeared?

Christ. They're more likely to let you be the next beatles beatles or Roland Piquemaineause.

Re:Oh, I get it now!

[pintomp3]

i've been staring at that site for a few minutes now, i don't get it.

Re:Oh, I get it now!

[ArsenneLupin]

You mipselled http://goatse.ca [goatse.ca]

Re:Oh, I get it now!

[ArsenneLupin]

Hehe, so now it's definately more filthy than your toilet seat...

Re:Bloody hell people

[_Shorty-dammit]

not enough yet, apparently, since we're still getting dupes :P

Your post is a dupe, too!

[archeopterix]

How many Slashdotters does it take to point out a dupe? Look above!

But your post is a dupe of a post criticizing dupe-whiners under the original dupe of the article!

It's a Trupe

[dorkygeek]

Well, in the first dupe you have all the people pointing out it's a dupe. In the second dupe, you have dupes of these comments and also new comments pointing out it's a dupe. It grows exponentially, I'd say. I'd say so too. So do I.

If you want karma whore, at least log in!

[ArsenneLupin]

Comment is a dupe [slashdot.org].

Well, even though the original was a +5, we can't call it karma-whoring because it's posted anonymously...

Re:Web Site Peeves

[lucm]

According to your list, here is what you should do:

1) Avoid Geocities
2) Don't browse the internet for free porn or warez

You will then discover a brand new internet, the one for grownups.

Re:Breaking the cipher, replying on-topic!

[mysticgoat]

"Nothing to see here..."

One of the interesting points made in What the bleep do we know is that human retinas are bombarded with millions of data bits each millisecond, and somehow the brain reduces this to a few tens of thousands of bits in the process of forming a conscious image, which happens pretty quickly. So these questions arise:

1. What are these processes that filter all this data before we actually experience "reality"?
2. To what extent do these very fast working processes control what we think we are seeing?

So in terms of web sites, it seems that even though I might not know how to define it, I can recognize quality before I see it. Yeah, that fits my experience: I'll google for something, open up a dozen of the most promising links in new tabs, then run through most of them at full click speed because I can instantly tell that they aren't the ones I'm looking for.

Viva tabbed browsing!

Re:Breaking the cipher, replying on-topic!

[tgv]

If you want an answer to these questions, I urge you to start studying neuro-biology and cognitive psychology immediately, do a PhD, get a post-doc, start your own research group and come back to inform us what you've found in 25 years.

The point I'm trying to make, is that there has been done an awful lot of research in this area, and there is still no way to answer your question.

If you want to start reading: most introductory books to neuro-cognition ("how the brain works") will give you a clue, but beware

Re:Breaking the cipher, replying on-topic!

[chengmi]

For all we know, this "on-topic" comment is a dupe, too.

Yes, it is a duplicate comment too

[jschottm]

For all we know, this "on-topic" comment is a dupe, too.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174167 &cid=14489311 [slashdot.org]

tehanu said:

You know this idea that people make judgements in the first 50ms before you can really gain a conscious impression of it (though probably something flashes in your subconcious) remind me of one of the entries in the "Dangerous Ideas" article in Edge (slashdot had it as a story a short while ago) in which Nobel Prize winning biochemist Eric R. Kandel argues that much of what we call "free will" is processed unconsciously without awareness:

willeh "said":

You know this idea that people make judgements in the first 50ms before you can really gain a conscious impression of it (though probably something flashes in your subconcious) remind me of one of the entries in the "Dangerous Ideas" article in Edge Magazine in which Nobel Prize winning biochemist Eric R. Kandel argues that much of what we call "free will" is processed unconsciously without awareness:

To be fair, he/she added, "Interesting read for sure." Insert usual karma whore comments, etc. here.

Dupalicious

[ichigo 2.0]

For all we know, this "on-topic" comment is a dupe, too.

Re:Breaking the cipher, replying on-topic!

[Feanturi]

I found your post about mold and its many virtues to be highly intriguing, well done!

Re:Breaking the cipher, replying on-topic!

[tgv]

Boy, this Eric Kandel is really a clever guy. How does he think "free will" comes about? Does he think the rest of the world think it's somewhere outside the brain? Of course not. The signal that is processed is part of the same system that implements the free will. He is confusing "free will" with our concious experience of stimuli. I'll have his Nobel Prize now, thank you.

Re:Cheap attempt to get a link from /.

[1u3hr]

Appears that the submitter is simply trying to boost his own website up.

You think "websiteoptimization.com" might be a commercial site?

Re:Well on our way to a quadrupe

[peterpi]

I believe the current high score is six: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168794&cid =14070720 [slashdot.org]

Re:It is a DUPE

[dorkygeek]

No, it's in fact a trupe! Dupe++.