The twentieth of a second rule – why great design matters

Imagine giving a business presentation where you have a twentieth of a second to convince your audience they want to listen to your proposal. Where after a few seconds, if they don’t like it, they’ll simply walk out… and even if they haven’t walked out, they’ll already have made a pretty concrete decision on whether they’re interested or not. Sounds awful? Welcome to the web.

The internet can offer a world of possibilities, but internet users are a very discerning crowd. And the statistics are downright frightening. A Canadian study back in 2006 found that it takes a site visitor about a twentieth of a second to decide on whether a website appeals to them; and that this first impression is unlikely to change. The study’s volunteers were shown a fraction-of-a-second glimpse of a website and asked to rate how much the site appealed to them. They were then allowed to visit the site properly, after which they rated it again – and the research shows that the two ratings closely tallied. The study concluded that if users believe a site looks good, it generates a ‘halo effect’, where this positive experience is carried over to the whole website experience.

So does it all hinge on design, then? Well, no – conventional wisdom has it that you have less than ten seconds to convince a visitor that your site has what they’re looking for, which means that your message has to be spot-on too. But as we all know, first impressions count: and that means that your website design is one of the most crucial aspects of your overall presentation.

(PS If you want to find out how much of a website you perceive in the first few seconds, why not take a look at fivesecondtest - a utility created to help designers assess the effectiveness of their website designs)

Reading List:
TechPsych.net
BBC Technology News

Customise your Google Search

If you use Google search whilst logged in to your Google account, you’ll probably have noticed something new by now. There’s some little control buttons appearing next to your search results. So what’s that all about?

Launched last week (and unusually for a Google implementation, rolled out across the board), Google’s new SearchWiki allows users to change the way their searches are handled. Using the little toggle buttons you can move search results up, or down, or delete them entirely from your search. You can also add comments about each search result. Of course, this only changes what you see, when you’re searching whilst logged into your own account, so you can’t just go around deleting your competitor’s listing (admit it, you did think of that, didn’t you?), but it’s a way of making your search results more relevant to you.

Positive Energy… why Cleantech is the next big thing

What do you get when you mix environmental awareness, improved operational performance, and better business models? Well, Cleantech, of course.

Cleantech has sprung out of an awareness that the industrial processes and designs which came out of the last couple of centuries have caused a measurable impact on our environment. And with everyone from customers and the media to the government and regulatory bodies focussed on cleaning up our industries and technologies, Cleantech is the way forwards. More of a concept than an industry sector, Cleantech is a way of operating which not only increases performance and productivity, but also reduces energy consumption, carbon footprint, waste output or pollution.

And not only is it environmentally friendly, its also big business. It attracts huge amounts of venture captial, with venture capital investment in European cleantech companies at £805 million last year, according to the analysts Library House.

Recently The Guardian teamed up with Library House to bring us the list of the Europe’s top 100 Cleantech companies, selected on the basis of positive environmental impact and potential future growth. Topped by a German company which designs and manufactures flexible solar panels, the poll’s top ten featured seven UK companies, two of which - CamSemi and Nujira – are Cambridge based. Products in the top ten included intelligent power management circuitry, low power standby mode technology, low power mobile phone and radio transmissions, and tidal turbines.

Reading List
The Guardian on Cleantech
The Guardian/Library House Cleantech Top Ten

We’re on page one! Freshleaf SEO… again

So anyone who read this post will know that we’ve been working hard to get Freshleaf Media’s website onto page one of Google for our chosen search term corporate website design. Well, I'm pleased to report that as of two weeks ago, we made it! Not only that, but we’re firmly above the fold, in position 3 – and we’re comfortably occupying slots 2 and 3 for corporate web design too.

To recap the journey; we launched the new Freshleaf site in May 2008 on a brand new domain, and after being sandboxed for a time, we first listed for our search terms in late July. It then took us until late October to get where we wanted to be for one carefully chosen search term.

Of course, that’s not the end of the story. There are other search engines, and other search terms. Not only that, but SEO can’t be done and left alone – Google’s next update could potentially see us tumble down the rankings unless we keep working at it. But it’s nice to know we can do it.

Five reasons to redesign

The company website is one of the public faces of the business, a marketing tool and a communication medium. As such, of course it needs to be kept up to date, and needs to evolve in line with your business. But how often, in reality, should you have a refresh or a redesign? Well, that depends….

Five reasons to redesign: it’s time for a rethink if-

1. Something big has changed. If there have been changes to what you’re trying to communicate then it’s time to consider an overhaul of the whole site to ensure that everything is still on target. This could be a shift in the core business ideals, or a change to the main marketing message, or it could be that the function of the website is changing: for example introducing new functionality such as e-commerce.

2. Something’s not right. The website’s all about communicating effectively with the audience: if the site isn’t performing as well as you would hope, or performance has started to drop off from what it was, then you need to take a closer look. Check the metrics for site performance, and they’ll soon tell you if its time for action.

3. Things don’t fit any more. It’s fairly common practice to continually update a site with more and more interesting and relevant content, but if the site is starting to burst open at the seams with new products, services or press releases, it’s time to reassess. Site layout, and just as importantly, architecture, should be intuitive – leading users easily towards one or two major goals. A site which has been updated over a couple of years with new products or new sections can become muddled and over-stuffed.

4. You have a new product launch. Every now and then a business might launch a new product or service that’s important enough to warrant a redesign. It might be that the new service is a slightly new direction, and causes a reassessment of how the business is organised, or just that you need to make a big marketing splash which can be supported by a new look and feel.

5. It looks dated. Eventually any design will start to look tired, or out of date, and then a redesign is called for. It’s generally considered that, with web design trends changing noticably from year to year, a website will start to look dated within about two years.

If it’s time for a redesign of your corporate website, there are a number of things to consider in terms of how you go about it… but that’s another post (watch this space). And if you’re looking for a design agency with experience in creating corporate websites which get results, look no further.