Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye
January 19th, 2006
Potential readers can make snap decisions in just 50 milliseconds, according to a recent article on news at nature.com.
We all know that first impressions count, but this study shows that the brain can make flash judgements almost as fast as the eye can take in the information. The discovery came as a surprise to some experts. “My colleagues believed it would be impossible to really see anything in less than 500 milliseconds,” says Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa, who has published the research in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology1. Instead they found that impressions were made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing.
Interesting article, but essentially nothing new. Bah!