Your site's fate, in a blink of an eye

You've got one-twentieth of a second to grab a first-time visitor to your website, according to a new study published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology.

BBC News reports that conclusions drawn about the aesthetic appeal of websites by users who looked at those sites for just 50 milliseconds closely matched those drawn by other users who looked at the sites for longer periods.

"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," lead researcher Gitte Lindgaard of Canada's Carleton University, told the BBC.

No pressure there....

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