ABSTRACT

Credibility judgments of online news are affected greatly by perceived expertise and trustworthiness, but users encounter an article’s visual appearance before its content, and yet visual appearance has not been studied in isolation. We conduct two studies of news article visual appearance. The first was with 31 undergraduates who rated the credibility of synthetic newslike articles containing only “lorem ipsum” text, indistinct videos and images, non-functional hyperlinks, and various fonts. The second study was with 30 different university students who rated the credibility of news articles from popular web outlets, half credible and half not. The articles were presented at 5600 words per minute, or 20 times faster than typical reading speeds, enabling only judgments of appearance, not substance. Findings show that credibility is affected by article length, image count and density, and font face and size. These factors interact to yield differential effects on perceived credibility. Articles that struck a balance among factors were most credible, giving rise to the notion of a “Goldilocks zone”, where credibility is highest. Interviews from both studies also revealed that perceived credibility was highest for articles that struck a balance among factors. This work has implications for visual information design, especially for online news.

摘要

网络新闻的可信度判断受感知专业知识和可信度的影响很大，但用户在其内容之前遇到文章的视觉外观，而视觉外观并没有被孤立地研究。我们对新闻文章的视觉外观进行了两项研究。第一个是 31 名本科生，他们对仅包含“lorem ipsum”文本、模糊视频和图像、非功能性超链接和各种字体的合成新闻类文章的可信度进行了评估。第二项研究是对 30 名不同的大学生进行的，他们对来自流行网络媒体的新闻文章的可信度进行了评级，一半可信，一半不可信。文章以每分钟 5600 字的速度呈现，比典型阅读速度快 20 倍，只能判断外观，不能判断实质。结果表明，可信度受文章长度、图像数量和密度以及字体和大小的影响。这些因素相互作用，对感知可信度产生不同的影响。在各种因素之间取得平衡的文章最可信，从而产生了可信度最高的“金发姑娘区”的概念。两项研究的访谈还显示，在各种因素之间取得平衡的文章的可信度最高。这项工作对视觉信息设计有影响，尤其是在线新闻。两项研究的访谈还显示，在各种因素之间取得平衡的文章的可信度最高。这项工作对视觉信息设计有影响，尤其是在线新闻。两项研究的访谈还显示，在各种因素之间取得平衡的文章的可信度最高。这项工作对视觉信息设计有影响，尤其是在线新闻。