Dr Gitte Lindgaard,
Carleton University Ottawa

Dr Bill von Hippel, University New South Wales

   Internet users can take just one-twentieth of a second to decide whether they like the look of a website, researchers say.  Dr Gitte Lindgaard and colleagues from Carleton University in Ottawa flashed up websites for 50 milliseconds and asked participants to rate them for visual appeal.  When they repeated the exercise after a longer viewing period, the participants' ratings were consistent.  "Visual appeal can be assessed within 50 milliseconds, suggesting that web designers have about 50 milliseconds to make a good impression," the Canadians report in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology.

   Dr Bill von Hippel, from the University of New South Wales, says it takes about 50 milliseconds to read one or two words, making this a "stunningly remarkable" timeframe in which to process the complex stimuli on a website.  "It's quite remarkable that people do it that fast and that it holds up in their later judgement," he said.  Professor von Hippel says the study also reflects the  halo effect, where an initial bias towards something drives subsequent judgements. "This suggests that we make very quick judgements based on an emotional reaction and our more considered judgements still reflect that first impression," he said.