Website Design: Visual Appeal

Visitors assess the credibility, and by extension the reputation, within milliseconds of the loading of the page. Getting the visual appeal of your website right is crucial in establish trust.

David Erickson/Midjourney - An artist, burnt orange, designing a website, powder blue highlights, cybercore

We make split-second judgments about the credibility of a given website the moment after it has been loaded into our browser, 50 milliseconds to be precise. 

• Is it visually appealing? 

• Does it look modern?

We may not consciously articulate such thoughts but subconsciously, we react emotionally to the experience a given website evokes. 

Think of the websites you visit regularly and those only infrequently. 

The sites you visit frequently are typically going to be those whose content you value–your local newspaper’s site, for example, or your favorite sports team or entertainment site. It’s the content that keeps you coming back but the experience is just as important: It is either great or it just doesn’t get in the way. 

Now think about sites you visit only infrequently. These are sites you typically must use on occasion. The site might be your state’s department of motor vehicles site that you need to use to renew your car’s tabs. Your purpose is utilitarian. You need to accomplish a task, so design is not extremely important but functionality is.