“Measuring Online Trust of Websites” is an interesting article for me because I haven’t thought that “trust” can be measured. In the article, I find the credibility doesn’t just indicate the information is true or not, or I can say, what we trust doesn’t equal to what is true. However, if we want to tell the truth, we should get users’ trust first. Even if the content is true, users may not trust it when the website design makes them feel uncomfortable.
So, the author used the model to show the relationship between each factors.
The external factor mean the wrap of the content such as the design, structure, or interface of the website. It affects the ease of use directly, and then influences how users feel about the site. Finally, they decide the site is believable or not.
The author conducted the survey to gather the data of how people trust the website with this model, but he didn’t tell how we improve the design. In the other article I found which title is “What makes Web sites credible?,” it also did an experiment and got several factors that affect the credibility. They are real world feel, ease of use, expertise, trustworthiness, tailoring, commercial implications, and amateurism. So, if we convey the real world aspect, make website easy to use, include expertise and trustworthiness, tailor experience, and avoid commercial element or amateurism, we can make the website be more believable.
Reference
B. J. Fogg, Jonathan Marshall, Othman Laraki, Alex Osipovich, Chris Varma, Nicholas Fang, Jyoti Paul, Akshay Rangnekar, John Shon, Preeti Swani, Marissa Treinen. (2001) What makes Web sites credible?: a report on a large quantitative study. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI ‘01. 61-68. Retrieved May 12, 2007, from ACM Digital Library http://portal.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/citation.cfm?id=365037&
coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=18434106&CFTOKEN=11067319.
I think there are design principles at work here that transfer from print media – after all, before the Internet, we had the source/author to consider and then the presentation of the information.
So, if I receive a beautiful package from the UW inviting me to attend graduate school, it is, of course, the reputation of the institution, the ability of the writers of the brochure or booklet and, finally, the layout. The last element is what may make me drawn to the university by the ‘feel’ it gives me.
The topics covered in both articles really lend themselves to the idea that “perception is reality,” assuming the source is credible.
I like your comment that you did not think trust could be measured. And I still have a hard time believing that all of the things they measured added up correctly. I think everyone who goes online should make sure they have their critical thinking hat on when they judge websites. I would not necessarily use their guide myself to determine if a site was trustworthy.
Having said that, I think we can use both articles measurements as a very basic beginning to judge websites and as a way to look at our own critically.
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