if by design

I stumbled across Stanford’s Web Credibility Guidelines and it really stuck a cord with me both as a web user and a developer. I decided to look into it further at where the problem was coming from and if it was actually important.

The problem

Traditionally computers are thought of as infalliable. They are after all binary based so they are usually either right or wrong. Simple. However, the internet has enabled people to interact with information in new ways and allows just about anyone to provide that information. As more humans have gotten involved, flaws have been introduced and the tradional image has been eroded. Credibility has been lost.

I believe there are three significant factors that are contributing to the erosion of credibility:

1. The information explosion triggered by the web.
2. The dot-com bubble bursting.
3. The increase in identity theft.

Information explosion

At the time of writing Google claims to have indexed 8.1 billion pages (via SearchEngineWatch) pretty much covering every topic under the sun. Most are pretty dire making it hard to find quality information. A typical search usually requires trawling through a couple of useless sites before you hit anything worthwhile. This experience slowly eats away at the trust and expectations users have for websites.

(A quick aside, I believe there is a real modern day skill or perhaps even art in just searching the web.)

The dot-com bubble

I think the experiences of the dot-com bubble still have a profound affect of how people perceive the web. Many users were affected financially by stock market losses and most will have read the negative press coverage. Consequently people are reluctant to trust the web, after all - “once burned, twice shy�.

Identity theft

According to the Home Office, 100,000 people in the UK are affected by identity theft every year at a estimated cost of £1.7bn. Rightly or wrongly the popular belief is that most of it occurs online. This immediately makes people wary of parting with their personal information and puts them on the defensive. Websites have to work from a negative position to restore trust and credibility to convince people to part with their details.

Why is credibility important?

Credibility is only important in certain circumstances, usually were there is risk or money involved. For example, credibility is vital on websites offering financial information such as share prices. If a user does not perceive website to have adequate credibility they are unlikely to purchase anything from it, commit personal details into its care or believe the information it contains. Once lost, credibility is difficult to regain.

However, whilst a lack of credibility can detract from a website I do not believe its mere presence is enough to motivate users to fully interact with a website. Credibility is what I believe Herzberg would call a hygiene factor.

The majority of this article is based on what I read at http://www.webcredibility.org and I would encourage you to check it out if you are interested in web credibility.