Aesthetics and credibility in web site design

Web sites often provide the first impression of an organization. For many organizations, web sites are crucial to ensure sales or to procure services within. When a person opens a web site, the first impression is probably made in a few seconds, and the user will either stay or move on to the next site on the basis of many factors. One of the factors that may influence users to stay or go is the page aesthetics. Another reason may involve a user's judgment about the site's credibility. This study explores the possible link between page aesthetics and a user's judgment of the site's credibility. Our findings indicate that when the same content is presented using different levels of aesthetic treatment, the content with a higher aesthetic treatment was judged as having higher credibility. We call this the amelioration effect of visual design and aesthetics on content credibility. Our study suggests that this effect is operational within the first few seconds in which a user views a web page. Given the same content, a higher aesthetic treatment will increase perceived credibility. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.