Web Intuition

Has anyone read the “Credibility” chapter in B.J. Fogg’s book “Persuasive Technology?” The reading discusses a massive study about the aspects of a website that users deem to enhance that site’s credibility. I was pleasantly surprised at the data – mostly everything that the users found to either enhance or deteriorate the credibility of the website were very practical things that I mostly took for granted until now. For example, the study showed that consistent pop-up ads decrease a website’s credibility. I smiled when I read this, because I find pop-up ads quite annoying.

My most important takeaway from the reading is to trust my intuition. As we start to brainstorm an internet campaign and unify its usability, credibility, and powers of persuasion, I think that one of the most important guiding lights of the process is to ask ourselves, “what would we want to see if we knew nothing about this candidate and decided to visit their website?” We all use the web regularly, so we’re certainly qualified to recognize our own reactions when we have a web experience that’s either good or bad and then use those reactions to help guide our campaigns.