Is this site credible? You make the call.
[ Posted by Dan on December 11, 2002 | 0 Comments ]

While perusing a backlog of WebDesign List messages, I came across one post about a report on website credibility and what effects it. I particularly like how they define the notion of credibility...

In this paper we adhere to the definition of credibility outlined by Fogg and Tseng (1999), with the following discussion drawing largely from this work. In their view, credibility can be defined as believability. Credible information is believable information. It's important to note that credibility is a perceived quality. It is not a property of a Web site, such as how many words the site contains or how many links are on the page. Instead, when one discusses credibility, it is always from the perspective of the observer's perception.

The part where the perspective of the observer is especially important in any user interface design or user experience modeling. Thom Haller talks about the 'disease of familiarity' in terms of the developer of a given web site and how their familiarity of the product/connect clouds their ability to take on the perspective of the intended audience. This paper gives us (ie, web developers) a chance to reset our perceptions.

 

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).