Specifically, a positive or negative decision is made within one-twentieth of a second-- less than half the time it takes to blink. It is also about the time for users to read just one word on the website.

In the study at the Carleton University in Ottawa, websites were flashed up on a screen for participants to view for 50 milliseconds, and then rated by the viewer.

Later when the pages were viewed again for longer periods of time, the viewers' opinion were the same.

The study was published in the March/April issue of the journal Behaviour& Information Technology.

"It really is just a physiological response. If the first impression is negative, you'll probably drive people off," said Dr. Gitte Lindgaard, the leading researcher,"So Web designers have to make sure they're not offending users visually."

However, the results did not show how to win a positive reaction from users."When we looked at the websites that we tested, there is really nothing there that tells us what leads to dislike or to like," Dr. Lindgaard said.

Usually the appeal of a website is tied to colour, movement and interactivity, while personal taste would always be a limiting factor. Enditem

(Agencies)