Amateur Hour Credibility Testing for Small Business Web Sites

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Applied ResearchHeidi L. EverettIntroductionCost-effective, efficient Web site management isessential to most organizations. Much has been writtenabout the importance of Web site usability. However,a Web site that is usable in terms of navigation canstill have credibility issues that reflect negatively on anorganization.As a result, Web site credibility has gained popularityover the last decade, but research in this area has beenlimited to identifying credible authorities of informationand Web sites containing inherent risk. Web sites withinherent risk include those that provide medical, legal,or financial information; those that ask for personalinformation (like www.irs.gov); and those that allowfinancial transactions (e.g., banking, travel, ande-commerce sites). Little research has examined one ofthe most common forms of Web site communication—that is, small business Web sites that do not pose riskand do not offer e-commerce. After all, as of 2010,the United States was home to 27.9 million smallbusinesses. A large number of those small businessesmay not deal in sensitive data or risk-related subjects,but visitors to their Web sites will still make judgmentsabout credibility when determining if they are willingto donate time or money to a nonprofit organization orto engage with a small business at its bricks and mortarlocation. The opposite can also be true. Much like poorusability, negative credibility judgments may negativelyimpact a customer’s engagement with a business—andultimately the businesses’ bottom line—especially whenyou factor in the recent trends in the development ofsmall business Web sites.Trends Influencing Small BusinessWeb SitesThe credibility of small business Web sites becomes evenmore of an issue when you consider two developingtrends in Web communication. First, many smallorganizations—such as small businesses or nonprofits—do not have large staffs with dedicated Web site experts.For example, as of 2010, the United States was home to27.9 million small businesses; of those, 78.5% did nothave employees (Small Business Administration, 2012).As a result, small organizations often rely on volunteersor multi-tasking owners and their family members andfriends to make up for not having an IT departmentor Web communications team. In those situations, theorganization’s presence on the Web (and their overallcredibility) can be stunted by the creation of patchworksystems built to fulfill one person’s perspective (ratherthan an organizational strategy), built on the expertiseof one individual who is only with the organizationfor a limited time, or built by someone with initiativebut little knowledge of effective web communications(Merkel, et. al., 2007; Turnbow, et. al., 2005).The second trend is the availability of free or lowcostopen access Web site programs. Resources such asDrupal, blu domain, Wix and WordPress are attractiveto small businesses and non-profits because they providesoftware that’s easy to use for people inexperienced inhtml or coding, numerous template options with usablenavigation and design, and the ability to go live with aWeb site in a matter of hours if an organization choosesto do so. In fact, of the top 10,000 small business Websites in 2012, 60% were created in WordPress, 20% inDrupal (Wanner, 2012). That means, approximately8,000 small business Web sites were developed usingeither WordPress or Drupal. Despite their ease of use,such programs can have negative implications on anorganization’s Web presence, since speed and easeof development can overshadow the importance ofdetermining the effectiveness of the end product.In this paper, I explore the relationship betweenWeb visitor expectations and their credibility judgmentsabout a small business based on the business’s Web site.Further, I show how a six-step credibility test (basedon Prominence-Interpretation Theory principles) is auseful tool for gauging Web credibility with web visitors,particularly in small businesses that have limited staffand financial resources. I begin by describing howWeb site credibility research is different than Web siteusability, but just as important.Usability Versus CredibilityBefore discussing how to conduct Web site credibilityresearch, it’s important to understand how it differsfrom usability research. According to The InternationalStandards Organization (1998, 9241-11), usability is the“extent to which a product can be used by specified usersVolume 60, Number 2, May 2013 l Technical Communication 119
Applied ResearchCredibility Testing for Small Business Web Sitesto achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency,and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” A centraltenet of usability testing, then, is having likely userscomplete task-based scenarios to gather data abouteffectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction (Barnum,2011, p. 18). This perspective has made usabilityimportant and widely researched in the field of technicalcommunication. In fact, a Google Scholar search of thephrase Web site usability yields more than 70,400 resultsalone.Although usability research can lead to importantdiscoveries, technical communication researchers andpractitioners can benefit from understanding andemploying additional methods of Web site evaluation.One area of research that can be beneficial is Web sitecredibility. As David Robins and Jason Holmes (2008)explained:[F]irst impressions are crucial for web pagecontent. Regardless of the quality or credibilityof content, a poorly designed or aestheticallyunappealing web page will likely producea negative impression of credibility. In anenvironment such as the World Wide Web, wherethere are billions of documents and thousandsof pages on a given topic, it is critical to presentinformation in such a way that it does notproduce a negative visceral judgment before theviewer even has a chance to engage the content atthe cognitive level. People are quick to abandona site and move on to one of any number ofcompeting options. Lack of perceived credibility issurely one of the reasons for this behavior. (p. 398)Web site credibility can be defined in a numberof specific ways. For example, it can be viewed as:(1) the credibility of the information available onthe web and (2) the credibility of an organizationpresenting the information. Credibility assessmentsmay be impacted by factors such as design features ofa Web site, certifications of the information presented,or certifications of the organization presenting theinformation (Fogg, Soohoo, et. al., 2003; Lazar,Meiselwitz & Feng, 2007). Search engine rankings mayalso impact credibility assessment (Kammerer & Gerjets,2012). Moreover, factors like product information, theonline shopping experience, and customer support mayimpact credibility (Fogg, Soohoo, et. al., 2003; Elliot& Surgi Speck, 2005). Perceived amateurism is anotherfactor considered when making credibility judgments(Fogg, et. al., 2001, p. 63). Amateurism has beenconnected to the size of the Web site, the site domainname, typographical errors, whether the site was hostedby a third party and whether or not the site had beenupdated. Finally, Miriam Metzger (2008) synthesizedan extensive list of factors from existing research thatincluded such details as date stamping, presence ofcontact information and privacy and security policies,broken links, a user’s prior experience on the Web,and URL (p. 2082). Metzger’s own research notes thatuser credibility assessments also depend on the user’smotivation and ability to assess.Although some of these many factors relate todesign elements—and design is often the first elementWeb users interpret—it’s important to note thatsimply having a visually appealing Web site does notautomatically equate to credibility. A Web site can bevisually appealing; that is to say its aesthetics as theyrelate to color choice, font usage, harmony of design,and use of white space can be pleasing to Web sitevisitors. Visually appealing Web sites can still fosternegative credibility judgments about a Web site.The bottom line is that credibility differs fromusability in that it moves beyond the efficiency andsatisfaction of a Web site to explore perceptionsof credibility by web visitors. In short, it shifts thequestion from “Is a Web site usable?” to “Is a Web sitecredible?” In addition, research on Web site credibilityextends beyond the Web site to ask the question “Is theorganization that is responsible for this Web site credible?”Usability testing alone only answers the first question,which may leave fatal flaws in the Web site execution.Assessing CredibilityOne of the best ways to assess credibility is throughProminence-Interpretation Theory (Fogg, 2002).This theory considers two important factors: (1) aWeb site element’s likelihood of being noticed—that is, its prominence—as well as (2) what value ormeaning people assign to that element—that is, theirinterpretation of it. The prominence and interpretationof an element may be influenced by many factors,120 Technical Communication l Volume 60, Number 2, May 2013
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