Opinion: Recent studies show that it pays to gussy up your Web site's aesthetics.Here's a news flash for you: Design matters. A lot. And there's some new research to prove it.
For many of us in the biz, it's all to easy to get caught up in buzz about new technology and think that the newest gadget, gizmo or piece of code will somehow solve all the problems we have.
But to be fair, it's pretty much what the rest of the world does. Look at the hype about Web 2.0 (and now even Web 3.0).
Look at the collective buzz about AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), online video and new Web standards. Look at where investment money flows. The world values sexy new technology.
But design … alas, that aspect of what we do always seems to be the mysterious domain of odd creative types who dress funny, mumble oddly, and often seem less than willing to get with the program. Creatives are notoriously hard to work with, highly opinionated, and don't like having their visions driven by the technology they're required to work with.
In most firms the developers and designers are separated by literal and figurative walls, and only reluctantly brought together by harried project managers who spend their lives trying to figure out how to get them to all work together.
Sure, there are a rare few folks out there who seem to have a talent for both the tech and the aesthetics (Ze Frank being one of my favorite examples), but they're rare birds indeed. Generally developers get the glory (and the money and the respect) and designers are tolerated as a necessary evil (if they're even brought in at all).
Some new research, however, shows that not paying attention to design can have huge consequences when it comes to the success of a site. And not only does design impact whether or not people use a site, but that first impression may occur a heck of a lot sooner than we'd ever thought.
Researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa recently discovered that users make judgments about Web site design in as few as 50 milliseconds (a mere 1/20th of a second!). This judgment is an emotional reaction based on pure aesthetics and has nothing to do with usability.
Java development gets the Web 2.0 treatment. Click here to read more.
In fact, the effect was strong enough that researchers concluded that "even if a Web site is highly usable and provides very useful information presented in a logical arrangement, this may fail to impress a user whose first impression of the site was negative."
While statements like this probably make ol' Jakob Nielsen's whiskers curl up in dismay, the research seems convincing. Humans form impressions based on emotional factors that often don't seem to make a lot of "logical" sense, but even if we want to rail against it, it still matters.
A recent study by Questus confirms the findings of the Carleton researchers by looking at how shoppers made decisions about online purchases.
While their subjects took a little longer to form an impression of a site (3 seconds), they found that "clean design" is one of the key factors in converting browsers to shoppers. Overall, less seemed to be more, with shoppers indicating a nearly two-to-one preference for fewer links.
It's clear that design can make the difference between deciding whether to buy online or not and between heading deeper into a site and moving on to the next competitor. But even if you've hooked someone in with a design that gives them a good gut reaction, design can also affect how they feel about your company, especially when it comes to judging your credibility.
According to an older study by Consumer Web Watch, the "design look" of a site is the top factor (again, nearly two-to-one) that consumers use to determine the credibility of a Web site. And credibility matters: If you seem like you might not be credible, consumers won't call and they definitely won't buy.
Whether you're talking about building credibility, generating sales or just getting people to stick around long enough to find out more about what's on your site, the bottom line is that design matters. A lot.
You can stuff a site with all the nifty tech you want, but if the design doesn't operate on a deep emotional level, you're going to be missing a lot of customers.
Web Design 
