This is part 6 in the Visitors, Truth, False Information and Personal Information arc. This arc deals with Evolution Technology's (ET) ability to determine the level of honesty website visitors are demonstrating when they fill out forms, et cetera, on line.
This post deals with visitor ability to deal honestly with online medical and pharma sites covering a seven day cycle, 27 Sept - 4 Oct 07. Visitors, Truth, False Information and Personal Information, Part 1 provided a report for a general B2B sampling of sites NextStage monitors for clients. Part 2 dealt with B2C sites and Part 3 with blogs. Part 4 dealt with a glom of sites and provided a general overview of visitor honesty on several sites in our system. Part 5 dealt with online insurance providers.
An explanation of how to read these charts is at the bottom of this post. This chart shows that an equal number of people are either telling the truth and fabricating OR and equal number of people are comfortable and uncomfortable when navigating online medical and pharma sites.
It's in situations such as this that a little postulating can be useful. What follows is an opinion.
I find it doubtful that people navigating a site that may help them cure a disease or understand what's happening to either themselves or a loved one would fabricate information. Doing so only means they won't get useful information and if getting information is what they came for, the more useful the information they receive the better they off they are, therefore fabricating and getting less useful information defeats the purpose of coming to the site.
Therefore (and without looking at other NextStage reports that would help make this determination with more precision) I'm going to assume (ASSUME) that visitors navigating these sites are uncomfortable, either physically or psychologically. Physically because and unfortunately they may be dealing with an illness. Psychologically because dealing with their own or a loved one's illness takes a toll psychologically.
And now to recapitulate the explanation:
Green indicates the number of visitors who respond truthfully to questionnaires, in chat sessions, etc., yellow indicates people who mix truth with non-truth and red indicates people who just make things up. Even when there's nothing to fill out or form to fill in, these values indicate which parts of the brain are firing most actively. The question probably then becomes, "If there's nothing to fill in, how can people be telling the truth or making things up?"
Deceitful behavior is both a boundary and defense mechanism. Think of a cat poofing its tale, a dog bristling it's back, things like that. These mechanisms engage to make the animal appear larger than it is. It is, in a sense, being deceitful, making itself appear larger than it is, to protect itself or its territory. Thus, when there are no forms to fill out, et cetera, and ET is picking up fabricational behavior it is an indication site visitors are uncomfortable with the website they're navigating. Similarly, truthful behavior is an indication visitors are comfortable with the website they're navigating.
(more to follow)
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
Upcoming Conferences:- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
» Online Vacation Sites, Truth, False Information and Personal Information, Part 7 from BizMediaScience
Visitors and Online Vacation Sites [Read More]
Tracked on: October 27, 2007 8:00 AM | Permalink to Trackback