This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Python Buzz by Carlos de la Guardia. Original Post: Blinking eyes, flash judgements and unattractive technology sites Feed Title: I blog therefore I am Feed URL: http://blog.delaguardia.com.mx/feed.atom Feed Description: A space to put my thoughts into writing. Latest Python Buzz Posts Latest Python Buzz Posts by Carlos de la Guardia Latest Posts From I blog therefore I am

These days I've been wondering how much an unattractive technology web site (specifically, I'm worried about http://www.zope.org) can influence the success of the technology it showcases. Well, there's an article in Nature about how fast web users judge sites, and it turns out that they can decide whether to browse away from a web site after looking at it for as little as 50 milliseconds.

This doesn't seem to leave a lot of room for in-depth feature comparisons. According to the researchers, "Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors,"

That's right, if you are convinced that once they understand how much better your technology is they will not give a damn about the site design, you better think twice.

Granted, the study was about business web sites. Technology users will be looking for some specific solution to a problem, so they generally will not care as much about site design. Still, when a user finds two web sites about similar technologies, which technology is likely going to seem more professional to him, even if unconsciously so? I would tell you, but what's the point of a rethorical question if you provide an answer?

So, this seems to imply that technologies like Ruby on Rails, Django and TurboGears may have a slight edge over Zope 3 just because of the effort devoted to their websites. In fact, this effort may be one reason Plone has had a lot of success in the Zope world.

I'm not suggesting that this is the defining factor or even one of the most important, but it certainly is a factor, so why not do something about this in your project? A little CSS magic and some carefully placed Javascript can do a lot of good to a web site and help promote the technology that it presents.

Of course, you still have to offer something valuable behind that gorgeous look, but site design may be a more important factor than many suspected, specially if the prospective user comes to the site via a web search, where he gets a lot of links and wants to find the right one quickly.