The Importance of Web Design and Website Credibility

One of the most significant functions of websites today is to provide credibility for your business. The credibility of your website is becoming more and more an increasingly important area to understand. And it's an area that many web developers and web designers fail to recognize when creating websites.

Website credibility is about making your website so it is perceived as being trustworthy, knowledgeable, and legitimate. A credible website can bring in huge benefits for your business. These days, anyone can buy a domain name, purchase some hosting, launch a website selling a product or service, and promise to deliver “the best at the lowest price.”

People visiting your website must be able to distinguish and believe that there is a real organization (or person) behind your website. Can I trust the information on this website? Can I trust in the services this website describes? There are no simple answers to these questions. It’s your job make your website (or your clients) a safe and reliable channel for people who seek your information, products, and services.

According to a study by B.J. Fogg, Ph.D, Cathy Soohoo, and David Danielson at the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab titled “How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?” it was found that When evaluating the credibility of a Web site, participants commented on the design look of the site more often than any other Web site feature, with 46.1% of the comments addressing the design look in some way.

Some of the interesting comments made by participants during this study were:

• This site is more credible. I find it to be much more professional looking. — M, 38, Washington
• More pleasing graphics, higher-quality look and feel — F, 52, Tennessee
• Just looks more credible. — M, 24, New Jersey
• I know this is superficial, but the first thing that struck me is the color difference. The … site is a soothing green (sort of like money) while the [other] site is a jarring purple. — M, 56, Virginia
• The design is sloppy and looks like some adolescent boys in a garage threw this together. — F, 48, California
• Not very professional looking. Don't like the cheesy graphics. — F, 33, Washington
• Looks childish and like it was put together in 5 minutes. — F, 25, Maryland

One of the overall conclusions from this study is that the participants relied a great deal on the surface qualities of a website to make credibility judgments. Participants seemed to make judgments about the people behind the website on the basis of “how the website looks.”

Not only do you need a website, you need a damn good website because people are interpreting your capabilities from that website. They are reading into your company and forming opinions about your personality, size, success, your organization, your style or taste, whether you have a sense of humor or not, etc.

There are pros and cons to this, of course. But make sure that the image you are painting of your company (or our clients company) is a good one. We have all landed on a website that looked like a joke. You know the kind -- poor navigation, scrolling or blinking text, bad music playing in the background, takes forever to load, doesn’t clearly explaining what they do or what they sell, has unreadable content (or no content at all)...hopefully I'm not describing your current website.

And remember... how something looks has tremendous control of how people perceive it.