Fifty milliseconds. Not 50 seconds, not five seconds. That's how long people needed to form an opinion of a web page's looks in a study published in 2006, and the opinion held up when they were given longer.

The study

The paper is by Gitte Lindgaard, Gary Fernandes, Cathy Dudek and J. Brown at Carleton University in Canada, published in Behaviour & Information Technology in 2006. Its title doesn't hide the finding: "Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!"

The setup was simple. Participants were shown web pages for 50 milliseconds each, which Nature's news write-up described as roughly one frame of TV footage, and asked to rate how visually appealing each page was. Those quick ratings correlated with the ratings people gave after looking for longer. (Nature)

Lindgaard told Nature the result surprised her own team: "My colleagues believed it would be impossible to really see anything in less than 500 milliseconds." So the researchers expected a blur. They got a verdict, and it was the same verdict people reached with more time. The researchers concluded that these snap judgements have a lasting effect on what people think of a page.

What it measured, and what it didn't

We want to be careful here, because this study gets stretched a lot online. It measured visual appeal. It didn't measure whether people trusted the site, stayed on it, or bought anything. So we're not going to tell you visitors decide to buy from you in 50 milliseconds. The study doesn't say that.

What it does say is narrower, and still useful. Before anyone reads your headline, your about page or your prices, they've already decided whether your site looks good to them. And that first call tends to stick, so everything they read afterwards is read through it.

The paper is also from 2006. Screens, phones and web design have changed a lot since then. The way we look at things, quickly and visually, hasn't changed nearly as much.

What this means for your website

Picture someone tapping a link to your site from a post or a search result. They don't arrive ready to study. They glance. In that glance they take in colour, layout, images, spacing and how crowded the screen feels. Your words haven't had a chance yet.

If your site looks like it hasn't been touched in years, your work could be brilliant and that visitor still might not scroll to find out. It's like walking past a shop window. You decide whether to go in before you've touched a single thing on the shelves.

We always say you need to make the four seconds somebody spends looking at you worth it. Turns out it's even less. Phew.

This isn't an argument for flashy design. A clean, calm page with one clear headline and a good photo can win that glance easily. A busy page with five banners, three fonts and a pop-up usually doesn't.

One thing to do this week

Run a tiny version of the study yourself. You don't need a lab.

Open your homepage on your phone and take a screenshot of the first screen, the part people see before they scroll. Do the same for two businesses you see as competitors.

Find someone who doesn't know your business, a friend or a family member. Show them each screenshot for about a second, then take the phone away. Ask two questions: "What do you think this business sells?" and "Does it look like it's worth paying for?"

Write down exactly what they say, word for word. If they can't tell what you do, or if your page comes out behind the other two, that's your to-do list. Start with the first screen only. Cut whatever is competing with your main headline, check your main image is sharp and relevant, and make sure the page doesn't look crowded on a phone.

Then repeat the test with someone new.

When did you last look at your own homepage for less than a second?

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