Web 2.0 Design, Halo Effects & Ugly Betty Complex

Today I would like to start with Web 2.0 and an interesting URL about features and designs that go into the "soft side" of making a website look Web 2.0. Without further ado, here is the "Web 2.0 How to Design Guide":

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm

The salient features of Web 2.0 discussed in the article are:

1. Simplicity

2. Central layout

3. Fewer columns

4. Separate top section

5. Solid areas of screen real-estate

6. Simple nav

7. Bold logos

8. Bigger text

9. Bold text introductions

10. Strong colours

11. Rich surfaces

12. Gradients

13. Reflections

14. Cute icons

15. Star flashes

"Halo Effect" Accents the Home Page

By IMC

Aug 6, 2006, 15:10

http://www.imcd.com/artman/publish/halo_effect_beautiful_websites.html

According to researchers at Carleton University in Ontario, Canada, first impressions of web pages are formed in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second); web surfers make instantaneous judgments about a site's visual appeal.

But, more importantly, this positive or negative gut reaction carries throughout the duration of the person's experience on that site. This carry over of first impressions is sometimes called the "halo effect," or cognitive "confirmation bias," where users search for confirming evidence and ignore evidence contrary to their initial impression. The desire of the ego to be right makes it look for evidence that will validate the initial hypothesis (first impression).

Lindgaard commented, "The strong impact of the visual appeal of the site seemed to draw attention away from usability problems. This suggests that aesthetics, or visual appeal, factors may be detected first and that these could influence how users judge subsequent experience...hence, even if a website 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."

In a precursor to the Carleton study, in 2003 B.J. Fogg of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University found that a "clean, professional look" was cited by 46.1% of participants when evaluating sites for web credibility. Information Design/Structure was cited 28.5% of the time, while Information Focus was cited 25.1% of the time. While the factors varied for different types of sites, disguised advertising and popup ads, stale content, broken or non-credible links, difficult navigation, typographical errors, popup ads, and slow or unavailable sites were found to harm credibility the most.

Since studies show that reliable decisions about your site can be made in as little as 1/20th of a second and that this emotional judgment can color subsequent judgments made later, even though your site may have superior products, services, or usability, an initial negative halo can steer customers to your competition. Take the opportunity to create a clean, professional and fast-loading site and reap the positive halo effect.

An AOL Marketing Executive's Experience with Another Halo Effect

By Meinhaj Hussain

This relates to a lecture and a conversation I was fortunate to have with a relatively senior AOL Marketing Executive (incidentally she may be looking for a job after the recent AOL downsizing). The Internet revolution has made marketing a whole new ball game. While previously you had to, in many cases, go by your gut feeling as to what will work and what won't, with the advent of modern Internet marketing, you now have the tools to scientifically analyze and study what works and what doesn't, given you have a marketing budget large enough for this. AOL clearly had this and the wisdom gleaned from this experience was partially imparted on this lecture.

There were a number of lessons learned and I only have time here to go into one of them – the "halo effect" of copying a style or pattern that psychologically connects with the consumer in a positive way. The earlier article showed the importance of impressions and here we go a bit further by indicating one way of using those impressions in marketing campaigns or web design. The framework I am looking at is the long and winding (and potentially fruitless) argument over whether to make a Website truly unique and thus making it "stand out from the crowd", so to speak or whether to make it familiar and closer to what market leaders or impression specific patterns would dictate. The gist of what I got from talking to her was that, while these two impacts move diametrically opposite to each other, the latter seems stronger than the former in many of her marketing campaigns. Thus for instance she gave one example of a banner advertisement that was beautifully designed and another one that was obviously simplified. She asked us which of these two we would choose and most of us chose the former. However, it turned out that the latter outperformed the former by a huge margin in tests. The key factor here was that they were trying to sell AOL music downloads and the latter banner had the same color scheme as iTunes.

While a conclusive answer cannot be found with generalizing on a small group of tests, it is my opinion that we would be better off relying on the halo effect rather than attempting to be unique, at least to start with. As we create our own brand image, this can be rethought but, for now, our emphasis should be to "keep it simple", follow the basic principles and attempt to weasel out appropriate halo effects for various segments. For instance, if we are going to create an online auction site, we should make our best effort to gain the halo effect of eBay buy making it look and feel like eBay. If we are going to have a forum, we should not stray outside Vbulletin, phpbb or Invision, of which Vbulletin is my favorite (and is also the most popular). Similarly, we can think of finding equivalents for other segments of our business, or to specific sections. These may seem to at first glance, look like small things but I strongly believe that they make a big difference.

I would also like to point out that simplicity and not playing around with colors and complex graphics is key. Again, if we look at virtually all the most successful websites, they are not the most aesthetic Website – they are the most functional ones and often the least aesthetic ones. There clearly seems to be an "Ugly Betty Complex" here however, I'll leave a more thorough discussion, perhaps for another day.

Jokes for the Week

A blonde antique appraiser was terribly overweight and could hardly fit behind the counter, so her doctor put her on a diet. "I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. The next time I see you, you'll have lost at least 5 pounds."

When the blonde returned, she shocked the doctor by losing nearly 20 pounds.

"Why, that's amazing!" the doctor said, "Did you follow my instructions?"

The blonde nodded, "I'll tell you though, I thought I was going to drop dead that third day." "From hunger, you mean?" asked the doctor. "No, from skipping."

Creative appraisal definitions

Fair Market Value - The value of items sold at a country fair.

Highest and Best Use - Whatever the person who is paying for the appraisal wants to do with the property.

Marginal Utility - Many appraisals.

Market Value - Formerly, one sentence which covered the bases pretty well. Now, a page of explanation, some of which appears to be contradictory and imprecise.

Purpose of the Appraisal - To make a living in the appraisal business.

Functional Obsolescence - That state of many older appraisers.

The Subject - A term police use to identify the victim of a crime.

Trapezoid - A device for catching zoids.

(I am not sure who to give credit for these jokes for, feel free to email me if you think its yours).