Categories: Articles

Websites Judged In A Blink Says CNN

So, this is how the article starts: “Internet users can give web sites a thumbs up or down in less than the blink of an eye, according to a study by Canadian researchers.”
The article titled, Web Sites Judged In A Blink, was posted on CNN.com yesterday.
The article is based on a study conducted in Ontario by Gitte Lindgaard that was published in Behaviour And Information Technology Journal.
The core result is that within one-twentieth of a second (which is about half the time it takes to blink) people make design judgments on a website that affect their overall experience.
So here’s the big question: why should the web be different than anything else in life? I’m not saying this is not an important study. I’m saying that human beings do this with everything – from how we look in the morning to how we judge every book by its cover.
Here’s the bad part: the study could not demonstrate how to pull a “positive reaction from users,” said Lindgaard. “When we looked at the Web sites that we tested, there is really nothing there that tells us what leads to dislike or like.”
OK, because the answer to that question is gold.
Now, we have a new study telling us what we’ve know about humans forever, it’s just that now we can relate that same information to how we experience websites.
You can read the full article here: Web Sites Judged In A Blink – CNN.com.
Please let me know if you think I’m missing something here. It could be the weather that is making me this bitter.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.