We all know that there are some pretty shady websites out there! College librarians and professors are constantly telling students not trust everything they read on the web and incidences of cyber crime and identity theft have become issues of concern to all of us.
So what can you do to make sure that your website complements the integrity of your business by creating feelings of credibility and trust, for both the information found on your site and the services your business offers?
Earlier studies suggested that having a privacy policy, or site ownership might be crucial factors in establishing credibility, but more recent research suggests that people rarely use technical criteria like this. So what is it that really gets evaluated? Identity of the site or its operator? Customer service or related policies? A site’s sponsorships? Nope.
In recent studies it is the “design look” and overall visual appeal of the site that get top honors. The key “visual cues” that comprise the overall visual design of a site include layout, typography, font size and color schemes are the most important factors.
Professionals in the field had hoped to see people use more rigorous evaluation strategies while assessing sites. This suggests that Consumer WebWatch, (a project of Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine and ConsumerReports.org, supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Open Society Institute) along with librarians and information professionals, must increase their efforts to educate online consumers so they evaluate the websites they visit more carefully and make better-educated decisions.
So when building the website for your business we suggest a two-pronged approach: working with professional web designers to develop a site that has the compelling visuals that inspire today’s web-visitors, while building in the other elements like privacy policies, customer service policies, sponsorships, and operator identity that will become increasingly important for tomorrow’s more savvy and more discriminating web users.
So what do you think characterize those visual elements are that are most important for today’s web consumers? Stay tuned for our next blog post and we’ll have some of the most current research for you.
