Making websites credible – Stanford guidelines

[Martin W]

After three years of research, involving over 4500 people, Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility released.
Several of the guidelines that seem commonsense; but not all are really obvious.
Here are the guidelines; the Stanford web page has comments on each, and links to supporting research (so indeed credible!).

Quote:

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.
2. Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.
3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.
4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.
5. Make it easy to contact you.
6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).
7. Make your site easy to use — and useful.
8. Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).
9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

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