The first time visitors come to a site they usually spend less than 5 seconds figuring out if they’re in the right place. Right place being, of course, where they can get whatever information it is that they’re looking for. During those 5 seconds you need to communicate what your site is about, what information you have to offer, and how they’ll be able to navigate the site, so it touches on design, usability, content and marketing…
What do visitors see during those 5 seconds? Try The 5 Second Glimpse Test:
- Open your website in it’s own browser window, and then minimize it.
- Ready?
- Un-Minimize the window and start counting slowly to 5 (1 mississippi, 2 mississippi….)
- Look at your website during those 5 seconds.
- Re-minimize the browser window.
- What did you see?
When I did The 5 Second Glimpse Test for this site, this is what I saw:
First my logo on the upper right… Then the flower below and to the left. Next the title of the top post. Then the site title and tagline in the upper left. Lastly, the little icons in the right column…. then it was time to close the window.
The great thing is you can use this test on others to see what they see in the 5 seconds. Just explain that you’re going to give them 5 seconds to look at your homepage and you want to know what they see during that time. It’ll give you pretty good insight into what people see when they first come to your site – and whether it’s what you want them to see.
Since you only have 5-10 seconds to catch someone’s attention, it’s important that you get the right message to them during that time.
What did you see during your 5 Second Glimpse Test?
Technorati tags: design, usability, marketing, strategy, business
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