This is the second installment of Visitors, Truth, False Information and Personal Information. Interestingly enough, some of what this arc touches on was part of a conversation Paul Legutko, Semphonic's VP Analytics, and Judah Phillips, Reed Business Interactive's Director of Web Analytics, had last week at Bentley College's Usability Labs with some graduate researchers. Many thanks to Paul and Judah for taking part in that discussion. I'll be sharing the outcome of that discussion here once the results and finalized and made available to me. This arc deals with Evolution Technology's (ET) ability to determine if visitors to websites are behaving...umm...fairly(??) when they fill out forms, et cetera. Some readers know I'm taking a sabbatical from NextStage and that means I get a chance to finish some projects that have been hanging over my head for months if not years now. One such project was the mathematics of truthtelling versus fabricating and how those two neural patterns are demonstrated when someone interacts with a website.
The rest of this post covers a seven day cycle, 27 Sept - 4 Oct 07, for several industries that NextStage monitors. Visitors, Truth, False Information and Personal Information, Part 1 provided a report for a general B2B sampling of sites NextStage monitors for clients. This post deals with B2C sites.
I provided an explanation of these charts in Part 1. That explanation is repeated at the end of this post. Compare this image with its B2B cousin in Part 1 and you'll notice that more consumers tell the truth (green) or recognizable portions of it (yellow) than do businesspeople when navigating websites. I'm a little surprised by this finding and with a little thought it makes sense to me.
These charts determine truth v fabrication by determining how much territoriality and defense mechanisms become active in a visitor's neural landscape when they navigate a website. Consumers -- at least the vast majority of them in today's eWorld -- no longer fear that websites will steal their soul, hence the defense mechanisms and territoriality that are indications of truth v fabrication don't become active. This ties well into something I mention in Reading Virtual Minds, that people are becoming more and more comfortable identifying with a projected online persona (doesn't matter if that persona shows up in Second Life or in a "junk" email address). This ability to be comfortable with a projected persona won't show up as a fabrication because the individual navigating a site or filling in information won't differentiate between their real versus cyber self.
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 Trainings: Upcoming Conferences:- DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
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