# Websites have just 20th of a second to impress

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/01/19/websites-have-just-20th-second-impress/
- Published: 2006-01-19T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

![](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/news/3896.jpg)

A study published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology suggests that
people make up their minds about the likely usefulness of a website in 50 milliseconds.
That is not long to get across the value of your charity’s work and the need for
people to support it financially.
The research will be useful ammunition for those
charities who are not yet raising funds successfully online. Conversely successful
online fundraising charities deserve even more praise if they are up against this
lighting fast level of discrimination among web users.

The Canadian research team found that these first impressions counted because they
tended to correlate with users’ impressions of a site over a longer period. An initial
positive impression of a site was usually reflected in a positive impression generated
after actually exploring and using the site.

So, if this research is correct, your fundraising message will only succeed on your
website if the website itself is clearly laid out and attractively presented. This
shouldn’t come as a surprise: good quality content in an otherwise poor website 
is not always going to be found, so a successful website needs to achieve a consistent
level of quality across all its content.

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What can you do to overcome this almost instant judgement? Clear branding, straightforward
navigation, and short but intriguing headlines on pages would probably go some way
to achieving this.

Let’s hope this page attracted your attention beyond those 50 milliseconds or you
won’t be reading this.

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