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


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.