Whilst catching up on my feeds I came across a great article from one of my favourite websites – Smashing Magazine. Barely a day goes by without a helpful resources being shared on Twitter, or a useful article being posted on their website. Thanks Smashing Magazine.
The article that caught my eye is entitled ‘10 useful usability findings and guidelines‘ and lists the ways that people use websites, and how this should impact on how websites are designed. This includes information such as: blue is the best colour for links, faces on a web page attract attention (and the direction of the faces draws our eyes in that direction – interesting!), and how white space improves reader comprehension – along with seven other insights. It’s fascinating stuff.
Point 3 really caught my attention and it is this: ‘Quality of design is an indicator of credibility’. Several research papers are listed with the following conclusion:
One interesting finding of these studies is that users really do judge a book by its cover… or rather, a website by its design. Elements such as layout, consistency, typography, color and style all affect how users perceive your website and what kind of image you project. Your website should project not only a good image but also the right one for your audience.
Other factors that influence credibility are: the quality of the website’s content, amount of errors, rate of updates, ease of use and trustworthiness of authors.
On one level, it’s not particularly revolutionary – a beat-up car doesn’t give you a great deal of confidence that it’s going to deliver you safely down the highway. And yet, only a cursory glance at many church websites (at least the ones I often come across!) suggests that the importance of design (and the basic concepts of usability) haven’t been taken into consideration.
Here’s a question for you to consider, whilst looking at your church (or ministry) website:
Q: How might the design of your church/ministry website affect how visitors perceive your church or ministry? Try and put yourself in the shoes of those who have no idea who you are and what you’re about – if they judged a book by its cover, what would they conclude?
It strikes me that it is possible for the design of our sites to be doing more damage to our credibility than if we had no web presence at all.
thanks Steve, great resource … I noticed Jakob Nielsen got a few mentions – He is the man when it comes to web usability.
p.s. I’d love to hear your thoughts on dundasanglican.com.au if you have a few spare moments some time.
I agree that it is very important to make your site colorful, yet clean, informative, yet not too busy. If I have to scroll down a few lengths of menu items, I would rather go to another site. If a site has harsh music when I first enter the site, I am likely to turn it off or get away from the site. Websites should be functional and meaningful and have a purpose. Thanks
Yep, church websites have to not only convey the message but also be aesthetically pleasing. I’m not sure if it’s because of the generation that we are living in or simply that people will judge a book by its cover, in any case our churches need to be able to put their best foot forward and a great website will help new visitors pass that barrier. Hey if you know anybody that needs a website give us a call at 502-9CAMNIO. Our best referrals are those who have websites that are not functional and honestly “ugly”