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Original Articles
Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!
- DOI:
- 10.1080/01449290500330448
pages 115-126
- Published online: 04 Mar 2011
Three studies were conducted to ascertain how quickly people form an opinion about web page visual appeal. In the first study, participants twice rated the visual appeal of web homepages presented for 500 ms each. The second study replicated the first, but participants also rated each web page on seven specific design dimensions. Visual appeal was found to be closely related to most of these. Study 3 again replicated the 500 ms condition as well as adding a 50 ms condition using the same stimuli to determine whether the first impression may be interpreted as a 'mere exposure effect' (Zajonc 1980). Throughout, visual appeal ratings were highly correlated from one phase to the next as were the correlations between the 50 ms and 500 ms conditions. Thus, visual appeal can be assessed within 50 ms, suggesting that web designers have about 50 ms to make a good first impression.
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- Citation information:
- Published online: 04 Mar 2011
Author affiliations
- a Human-Oriented Technology Lab , Carleton University , Ottawa, Canada
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