Session instrument
Five-second test
5s
Measures: What remains of a first glance
The cheapest of all and the one that tends to produce the most uncomfortable evidence, because it reveals that the most striking element on your screen is not the one you wanted it to be.
A page’s first impression forms before any reading: LindgaardMeasured that the first impression of a page forms in 50 milliseconds, before any reading.One reference in this work:2006Attention web designers: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impressionSee in the bibliography → et al. (2006) showed that judgements of visual appeal made with fifty milliseconds of exposure already agree with those made with far more time. And what is retained from a short exposure is limited by sensory memory, which holds a great deal for a very short time and erases almost all of it before it becomes a report (George SperlingMeasured visual sensory memory and showed that it keeps almost everything for less than a second.One reference in this work:1960The information available in brief visual presentationsSee on Wikipedia ↗See in the bibliography →, 1960). The five-second test works exactly in that window. It is the accessible instrument that corresponds to eye tracking: one measures where the eye went, the other measures what stayed.
How to run itShow the screen for five seconds, take it away and ask three things: what the person remembers, what they think the product does and what they would do next. Twenty people are enough for the pattern to appear.
SeesCheap, quick, and it measures what attention captures before any deliberate effort.
Does not seeIt only speaks to first impressions: it says nothing about continued use.