Title:	THE EFFECT OF INTERACTION ON VISUAL APPEAL AND TRUST IN ONLINE HEALTH INFORMATION
Author(s):	Marian McDonnell and Tara O’Reilly
ISBN:	978-989-8533-64-7
Editors:	Katherine Blashki
Year:	2017
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Visual Appeal, Trustworthiness, Interaction, Website First Impressions, Online Health Information, Website Genre
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	100
Last Page:	108
Language:	English
Cover:
Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	64% of the Irish population use the internet as a health information resource (Gallagher, Tedstone, Moran and Kartalova-O’Doherty, 2008). This health information is used to self-diagnose and check symptoms, but anyone can upload information online, making it difficult to regulate trustworthy and untrustworthy information. When users trust inaccurate information, it can cause anxiety and unnecessary financial cost. Previous research has found online users depend on the visual appeal of a website as an indicator of trust. This impression can be formed within 50 milliseconds; regardless of information quality. The purpose of this study was to examine if trust after a short exposure (200 milliseconds) and trust after a long exposure (7 seconds) were predictors of trust after interaction. Furthermore the effect of website genre on trust and visual appeal was analysed. 25 participants rated visual appeal and 73 rated trustworthiness. There was a significant relationship between trust short and trust interaction, with trust short accounting for 36.8% of the variation in trustworthiness ratings after interaction. Website genre influences visual appeal rating but not trustworthiness ratings. From these results, it was concluded that impressions formed in 50 milliseconds can be extended to impressions formed after interaction.
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