&Web credibility is a lot like dating. I think the principles are roughly the same. This article, part one in a series, looks at how web credibility and blind dates are one and the same.
Users judge a website’s credibility based on fours things (Tseng & Fogg):
- Their pre-existing assumptions
- What others have said;/li>
- Their first impressions
- Their experience of using the site
In dating terms this equates to:
- Stereotypes
- What their friends say
- Looks
- Personality
Setting the scene
Pretend for a moment you are in the game and after a long term relationship based on trust. You are invited to go out for a drink with a friend to a new bar. The bar is located in the middle of a college campus and you friend is going to introduce you to a computer science grad for a drink.
Assumptions and stereotypes
Forget about your friend for a moment. The only information you have is that you’re meeting a computer science grad who is interested in a relationship with you. Your mind will probably start whirling, trying to figure out what this person might be like. However, with so little information any analysis will be based on personal assumptions and stereotypes of computer science grads.
The same is true of websites. Before a user visits they will have an expectation of what they will find and probably have made some assumptions about what they expect to find. Tseng & Fogg calls this presumed credibility. For a website owner it is quite hard to shape and influence these assumptions except by running a marketing campaign both in the offline and online world.
In terms of dating, imagine the night before the trip to the bar you watch a documentary about computer scientists and how 90% go on to be top models. Might change your opinion a little.
Recommendations and reviews
On the way to the bar your friend starts to describe the grad to you. If you trust your friend and value their opinion this will carry a lot of sway and may influence your expectations of the meet. In fact there is a good chance you only agreed to this ‘blind date’ because it was your friend who organised it.
Once again this mirrors the our virtual equivalent. Users are more likely to believe a website to be credible if they link through to (or read a review of) it from a source they trust. Tseng & Fogg calls this reputed credibility.
First impressions
First impressions really count in dating, in fact they count in a lot of aspects of life. In the first few seconds of meeting the grad in the bar you will form all sorts of opinions about whether there is potential for a relationship. For websites, recent research published in the Behaviour and Information Technology Journal (via BBC News) suggests that users form an opinion in the first 50ms. Scary. Tseng & Fogg call this surface credibility.
Experience
Having met your friend’s friend and decided that on first impressions it is worth hanging around you begin the process of getting to know them better. Your opinion and desire to continue relationship will now be influenced by your experience of their personality, company and conversation.
The same is true for websites. The final type of credibility is called experienced credibility by Tseng & Fogg.
In part 2 I’ll discuss how to maintain this new friendship and see it bloom into a beautiful a long lasting relationship
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