Another Thing to Worry About - The Subconscious

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Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!


Three studies were conducted to ascertain how quickly people form an opinion about web page visual appeal. In the first study, participants twice rated the visual appeal of web homepages presented for 500 ms each. The second study replicated the first, but participants also rated each web page on seven specific design dimensions. Visual appeal was found to be closely related to most of these. Study 3 again replicated the 500 ms condition as well as adding a 50 ms condition using the same stimuli to determine whether the first impression may be interpreted as a ‘mere exposure effect' (Zajonc 1980). Throughout, visual appeal ratings were highly correlated from one phase to the next as were the correlations between the 50 ms and 500 ms conditions. Thus, visual appeal can be assessed within 50 ms, suggesting that web designers have about 50 ms to make a good first impression. http://www.carleton.ca/hotlab/Abstracts/LindgaardG.FernandesG.Dud.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060109/full/060109-13.html

[DougBTX]

I think we've always known that :)

My first question,based on the quote above, is: Does that mean it takes us 50 ms to make a descision, or just that it takes 50 ms for us to see the design, and then we make up our minds about whether we like it or not over some undefined period after that before clicking the "I like it" button?

Douglas

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Possibly this goes into the mysterious realm of
Instinctual Beauty