The dark side of credibility
Posted: November 1, 2011 Filed under: Design, Psychology | Tags: credibility, design, halo effect, Indiana University, Ohio State University, Pablo Briñol, persuasion, psychology, Richard Petty, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, usability, UX, Zakary Tormala Leave a comment »The halo effect is a commonly cited reason to pay attention to aesthetics. This refers to people’s tendency to assume that when things are good in one way, they must also be good in other ways (for instance, that attractive people are smarter). Even if you discount the notion that attractive things work better, there is still good reason to make websites and products beautiful, because beautiful presentation in a sense rubs off on everything else connected with that thing.
We also use visuals to convey other favorable impressions, such as credibility. And this often pays off — after all, in a choice between a clearly amateur website and one that looks professionally designed, more people are going to feel comfortable buying from the better designed site.
Most of the time. Read the rest of this entry »
