The Goldilocks zone: young adults’ credibility perceptions of online news articles based on visual appearance

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.