The five-second test: do visitors get what you do right away?

The first screen decides

Visitors don't read your homepage from top to bottom. They look, decide whether they're in the right place, and leave if that isn't clear straight away.

Researchers at Nielsen Norman Group analysed Microsoft Research data on more than 205,000 pages and over 2 billion visits. On 99% of those pages, the chance that someone left was highest in the first few seconds. Their rule of thumb: make clear what you offer within about ten seconds.

That's no reason to panic. It is a reason for a simple test.

How to run the five-second test

Let someone who doesn't know your business look at the first screen of your site for five seconds. Just the big heading, the line underneath and the button. Then ask three questions:

1. What does this business do?
2. Who is it for?
3. What should you do next?

If they can answer all three, you pass. If they hesitate on one, that's where the work is. Test it with three people, ideally on their own phones. Friends and family are fine, as long as they don't already know what you do.

What belongs on that first screen

Visitors ask their questions in a fixed order: where am I, what can I do here, why here, why should I trust you, and what now. The first screen answers the first two and points to the rest.

• One heading (H1) of at most twelve words. It says what you do, for whom and where. Not a slogan, but your offer.
• One line underneath that makes it concrete: the outcome for the customer.
• One button with a verb and what the visitor gets. "Book an appointment" instead of "More info".
• One reassuring line under the button, of at most eight words. For example "Reply within one working day".

Together that stays under thirty words. More words don't make it clearer, just longer.

Two examples that both pass, in a different tone:

Physiotherapy in Breda for athletes who want to get back fast. Button: Book an appointment

Wrecked from training? We'll get you going again. Button: Book your first session

The first is businesslike, the second is casual. Both say what, for whom and what next.

Does your site fail the test?

Then rewrite the heading first, and only then the line underneath. Don't add extra sentences to explain it. A heading has to work without context too: in Google, in a shared link, on a phone on the train.

A few things that almost always go wrong:

• "Welcome to our website" as the heading. The visitor already knows that.
• A slogan without an offer, such as "Building tomorrow together". Nice, but what do you sell?
• A carousel with rotating messages. Click data from the University of Notre Dame showed that about 1% of visitors clicked a slide, and 84% of those clicked the first one. The rest is barely seen.
• A video that starts playing by itself and pushes the heading down.

And then? The first two screens

People do scroll, but their attention fades the further they go. In Nielsen Norman Group's eyetracking research, 57% of viewing time went to the first screen and 74% to the first two.

So put your whole argument, in short, within those first two screens: your offer, one piece of proof (such as your review score with the number of reviews) and the button. Everything below that is for the visitor who wants to know more. They exist too, but they're already convinced enough to scroll.

On a phone

Most visitors see your site on a phone. There, the heading, one line of text and the button should sit within the first six hundred pixels. A big photo at the top that pushes the button out of view costs you visitors.

Think about the first impression of your design too. Research by Lindgaard and colleagues showed that people decide within a fraction of a second whether something looks good. Note: that was about how attractive a site looks, not about whether people bought anything. A polished site helps, but a clear heading helps more.

In short

• Test your first screen with three people who don't know your business.
• Heading, line underneath, button and a reassuring line: together fewer than thirty words.
• If it fails, rewrite the heading instead of adding words.
• No carousel and no video that starts by itself.

Want to check every part of your site like this? That's what the checklist is for.

Want us to rewrite your first screen for you? This is how website design at Webclouds works.