Ease of Use Trumps Expertise AND Trustworthiness in 2001 study

Credible or not, and why? Image source.

Any one metric for evaluating credibility probably contains fallacies. A combination of techniques may be the wisest course, but in spite of best efforts, people will do what they do.

A 2001 CHI report found that respondents ranked Ease of use above expertise and trustiworthiness in determining website credibility.
Ease of use is the second in a list of 5 main criteria, coming after Real-world feel, and before Expertise, Trustworthiness, and Tailoring (personalization). This actually makes some sense when considering the Real-world feel includes identifying information such as physical address being available on the site. This openness shows that the institution is not hiding at least this contact information, allowing for investigative possibilities.

The meaning the researchers give for Ease of use includes ability to search an "archive," which is a historically common way of evaluating authority (ie, how long have you known someone?) and professional design which is probably more problematic.

A more recent study from 2003, with one author in common from the first study, found that "Design look" was the TOP credibility issue. Appearing in 48.1% of comments compared to 14% that mentioned "Accuracy of information."
Any analysis is subjective, so perhaps the researchers were lax in their judgment of the comments, but I believe that website browsers really do put a great deal of faith into sites due to their usability.
One user commented, "The design is sloppy and looks like some adolescent boys in a garage threw this together."

Perhaps this low(er) importance of accuracy as a metric stems from the fact that users don't necessarily already know what is accurate, that is, after all, what they are judging.
One user wrote, "Most of the articles on this Web site seem to be headline
news that I have already heard, so they are believable." Seeming to be headline news may or may not be a better a metric for accuracy than the design look.

The authors do admit that due to the nature of their study, design look may have surfaced as more important because participants were not actually invested in their search, and so allowed themselves to rely more heavily on superficialities than they otherwise would have.

However, both studies contain results that point to 5 or 6 main ways that users decide whether or not to believe information on the web, and towards the top of both lists is design/use. Although this might not be the way we wish the world to work, it is wise to take it into consideration. We don't want to "Look childish."

In order of ranking from the 2003 study, these criteria were related to determining credibility either in a negative or positive way (I think which is which will be obvious):

Design Look 46.1%
Information Design/Structure 28.5%
Information Focus 25.1%
Company Motive 15.5%
Usefulness of Information 14.8%
Accuracy of Information 14.3% (!)
Name Recognition & Reputation 14.1% (!)
Advertising 13.8%
Bias of Information 11.6%
Tone of the Writing 9.0%
Identity of Site Sponsor 8.8%
Functionality of Site 8.6%
Customer Service 6.4%
Past Experience with Site 4.6%
Information Clarity 3.7%
Performance on a Test 3.6%
Readability 3.6%
Affiliations 3.4%