Design is a way of paying attention.

1. The first impression is visual, and it is fast.

In a 2006 study, people rated web pages they saw for a twentieth of a second, then again for half a second. The two sets of ratings lined up closely. The judgment about how a page looks forms about as fast as the eye can take it in, well before anyone reads a headline.

A large Stanford study found the same thing from another angle: when people explained why they trusted a site or not, the look of the design came up in 46.1 percent of their comments, more than anything else. So we treat the first screen as the handshake. It has to feel right before it has to say anything.

2. Looking easy and being easy are different jobs.

Since 1995, studies have shown that attractive interfaces are judged easier to use, and that the judgment sticks even after people use them. The same studies are careful to say what that does not mean: the attractive version was not actually easier. It only felt that way.

Feeling easy and being easy are measured separately, and they do not always move together. That is the honest version of the argument for design, and it is why we do both jobs: make the site look easy, then make sure it is.

3. Clear beats clever.

Things that are easy to take in are liked more, trusted more and even judged more likely to be true. Psychologists call it processing fluency. Clean contrast, a familiar layout and plain words all raise it.

The conversion data points the same way. In one landing page platform’s benchmark of 41,000 pages, copy written at a 5th to 7th grade reading level converted at more than twice the rate of copy written at a “professional” level. We write for smart adults who are busy, not for other marketers.

4. Speed is part of the design.

A page that has not loaded has no design at all. Mobile research from a major search platform found that more than half of mobile visits are abandoned when a page takes longer than three seconds, and the steepest losses happen between one and three.

When polish and speed pull in different directions, the evidence sides with speed and clarity. So heavy effects, oversized images and extra scripts have to earn their place on our pages, and most of them do not.

5. Carry one idea past the first screen.

When we audited a whole category of manufacturer websites, almost every one had a good opening: a strong photo, a real line of copy. Almost none kept it going. One click in, every site turned into the same stack of interchangeable modules.

The brands that hold attention treat every section as the next chapter of one story. That matters because feeling does real work: in an analysis of 996 advertising campaigns, emotional campaigns beat rational ones on every brand measure studied. A page that only lists features gives that away.

What we will not claim.

Beautiful design does not make a product work better; it makes it feel better, which is why we build for both. No controlled study proves design alone raises revenue; the strongest evidence shows a close link, not proof. And popular stories about logos triggering dopamine trace back to a television segment with one subject, not a study.

Sources.

1. Lindgaard, Fernandes, Dudek and Brown, "Attention Web Designers: You Have 50 Milliseconds to Make a Good First Impression!", Behaviour and Information Technology, 2006.
2. Fogg and colleagues, "How Do People Evaluate a Website’s Credibility?", Stanford Web Credibility Project, 2002.
3. Kurosu and Kashimura, "Apparent Usability vs. Inherent Usability", CHI ’95 Conference Companion, 1995.
4. Tractinsky, Katz and Ikar, "What Is Beautiful Is Usable", Interacting with Computers, 2000.
5. Reber, Schwarz and Winkielman, "Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure", Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2004.
6. Binet and Field, The Long and the Short of It, IPA, 2013.