Oneupweb : Judging a Book by its Cover

I’m all about judging a book by its cover! In fact, I judge just about everything on its first impression. No matter what the object is, the first impression is most important to me. Within the first minute of meeting a person, I either like them or don’t care for them at all. If packaging for a product looks like a three-year-old made it, you can bet I won’t be spending my money.

If I go to a website to purchase hardware or software, and the site was designed by a friend of a friend who knows how to use Microsoft FrontPage, then I won’t be staying long. I don’t waste my time on amateur websites and neither should you.

A first impression of a site conveys a great deal of things to me. Within seconds of visiting a site, I can get a good idea of the company’s target audience and the type of customer service I should expect.

That first viewing is like a job interview. If something appears to be less than average, then I am going to assume the services or products will be of poor quality. A company needs to put their best foot forward when designing a website. It’s important that companies don’t cut corners when creating their image, because it’s easy for customers to turn to a different source.

If I don’t feel intrigued with a site, then I don’t need to waste my time or money with that particular company. In fact, this all holds true whether we are talking about a website, an individual or product packaging. When you take the time to do it right, people see that and they appreciate it.

You know what I’m talking about…think about all the times you have looked for a product online and you came across that one site that just made you laugh. There have been many times when I was looking to purchase something and found “That” site. The pathetic site may have had the product listed for ten dollars cheaper, but there was no way I would risk my credit card information with them.

I’m not saying that companies have to spend a bunch of money to do their websites right, but I do suggest they seek experts to create professional looking and functioning sites.

Does anyone have any sites they’d like to give a shout out to for having great design and function? Please do!