Why First Impressions Matter To Casino Players?

There is no second chance for first impressions in the casino business. With hundreds of casinos on offer, players are quick to decide whether they want to play in a casino based on its design and other features.

However, it can be frustrating for players to sign up to dozens of casinos to find the most suitable casino for them. That's why we have now included screenshots of each casino to our casino cards at Mr Gamble.com to make the process of finding the right casino as easy as possible. Players can now quickly see what casinos look and feel like before they commit to signing up to a casino, saving them time and headaches. But how important are first impressions actually?

Studies on websites and first impressions

In a 2012 study, Google confirmed that it takes the average user about 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about a website. In fact, according to the survey, users form some opinions about a website within just 17 ms. The most notable findings from the study were that sites with low visual complexity and high prototypicality (how representative a design looks for a specific type of website) were deemed attractive. But what does this mean for operators?

This means that operators should strive to create websites that look and feel like casinos. Players have expectations of what online casinos should look like, and diverting from them is a risk, no matter how creative or unique the design.

Design as the main driver of first impressions

British researchers analyzed how different design and content elements influence the trustworthiness of health sites. The study clearly showed that the websites' look and feel was the primary factor influencing first impressions.

Interestingly, the study found that most website critiques relied on sites' designs, not their actual content.

Of all the negative feedback the study subjects submitted, 94% was about design:

• Complexity
• Crowded layout
• Lack of navigational aids
• Dull web design
• Colours
• Pop-ups
• Small prints
• Too much text

Only 6% of the critique was about the content. Visual appeal and website navigation had by far the biggest influence on people's first impressions of a site. At the same time, poor interfaces led many users to reject and mistrust websites instantly.

Summary

Although the studies cited in this article didn't investigate casino sites directly, there's no reason to suppose that the same principles don't hold true when it comes to online casinos. Players form first impressions in milliseconds primarily on the basis of sites' designs.

If a player deems a particular casino untrustworthy or its interface cumbersome, they will leave the site and move to the next one. The implications for conversions are obvious – casinos with poor designs don't attract as many players as casinos with good designs.