As I lecture around the country, one thing I have shared time and again with attendees is that "people DO judge a book by its cover." Though our parents and teachers told us not to do that, the truth is, we all do it. Especially on the Internet.
Prior studies have shown that people make a decision about whether or not to continue browsing a website after just 3 seconds. If you thinks that's fast, things just got faster. According to a recent report from Google's Research blog, it actually takes just 17-50 milliseconds (blinking your eyes once takes around 100-400 milliseconds).
The research also concludes that "...users strongly prefer website designs that look both simple (low
complexity) and familiar (high prototypicality)". In other words, users love simple and familiar designs.
The full post can be seen at: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/#!/2012/08/users-love-simple-and-familiar-designs.html
Lance McCollough is founder and CEO of ProSites.
