How a Site Looks Matters

March 13, 2003

While user experience designers (myself included) are constantly working to design sites that are designed from the ground up with usabilty in mind, the visual design aspect still matters. In fact, a recent study concluded that how a site looks visually lends greater weight to it's credibility with users than it's overall usability.

The percentage break down worked out to something like this:

• 46.1 percent of those surveyed mentioned the site’s appearance in assessing it
• information design/structure, was mentioned only 28.5 percent of the time