How Well Does Your Web Site Say Hello?
August 26th, 2005
It would have been very hard to miss Malcolm Gladwell’s new book: Blink. You can find it on every bookseller’s storefront, in a myriad of conversations about human behavior, and on T.V. I saw Gladwell while I was flipping through the channels the other night: it’s impossible to miss his hair.
The premise of Blink is that we think without thinking, that our brain is always working even if we don’t realize it. We make split-second decisions about things with very little data. That new neighbor? We already have an opinion about him. That person’s clothes? It does affect our impression of them.
What about web sites? What about our first impressions of using them? Does the story in “Blink” carry over to our life online?
A simple example is how well a web site says “hello” to readers. Is it friendly? Is it indifferent? Does it dress nicely, or poorly? Does it assume that the reader knows something that they don’t? Does it tell people what they need to know to feel confident that they’re in the right place?
Here are three sites that offer a very similar service. But they each have a very different way to say “hello”, and they each produce very different split-second impression. Take a look at all three for a moment and see for yourself:
Now, knowing what you know now about these sites (which isn’t much), if you had to recommend one of these services, which would you choose?
Is there any doubt in your mind?
So, how can you find out how well your site is saying hello? Well, we call a more formal method of investigating initial impressions a “5-second Test”. Christine described the 5-Second Test a few weeks back in good detail.
The 5-Second test is a small part of our ongoing research into what we call “just-right” information. Just-right information is information that is not too minutely-detailed to be useful nor is it information that is too sparse to be helpful. It’s just-right, and part of delivering The Right Information is that it makes a good impression when it says “hello”.
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September 2nd, 2005 at 10:50 am
I took a look at the three sites and picked the one I would recommend in an instant. The 5-second test is certainly something that I’ve found myself doing when comparing different services on the web. What I thought most interesting about the three sites you shared was how un-financial the look of the blinksale site was. Of the three sites I felt it was the least trustworthy a design.
Then this morning while researching IA concepts for design firms I came across Firewheel Design ( http://www.firewheeldesign.com/ ) and immediately recognized the design from Blinksale. I thought it interesting that the look and feel which didn’t work for my 5-second evaluation of the billing companies felt much more comforting on a website for a design company.
September 7th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
I’m not so sure about this ‘hello’ thing. I experience a bundle of ‘hello’s’ everyday when using the internet. Mind you some of the hello’s are very sexy and head turning, but don’t deliver on real content. I find it’s the ease of ongoing conversation (read interaction) after the initial hello with a site that is the real winner.
One site I visit a lot becasue it’s a hobby is http://www.cookandstay.com.au. The site has a fairly simple hello and is so ‘on message’ that if you want to particpate in the conversation the site is offering you just go right ahead. So I think quality of the hello backed up by a potentially useful and effective conversation is a good indicator.
November 17th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
A free translation of the article of Christine Perfetti in Spanish in blog Humanizando of Factor Humano exists in case to somebody it interests to him.