The biggest misconception in webdesign: trustworthiness

I have visited so many websites reading about companies blabbering on about how trustworthy a company they are, that you could trust all your savings to them. As if trustworthiness is some form of characteristic that they possess. That is one of the greatest misconceptions that trustworthiness is something that you automatically can contribute to all your services and offerings.

Its understandable that companies see themselves as trustworthy - what better than to make the consumer feel that they can safely buy that €200 pair of sunglasses, or that €18.000 water cleaning system. The word "trustworthy" is becoming more and more abused as e-commerce continues to boom.

I went to my dictionary and looked up the word and found the following: 

trust-wor-thy (adjective): able to be relied on as honest or truthful

Trustworthiness is the sum of all your actions that in the end contribute to making your company "trustworthy". The written and visual elements of your website all contribute to being a relied upon source, stray once - and you will be duly punished. Webdesign contributes greatly to creating a sense of trustworthiness, but it is also necessary to reflect on the fact that poor design can and will often lead to your company being labelled as "unreliable".

First and foremost, trustworthy webdesign needs to appeal to your target group. If you are designing a site aimed at an inexperienced user group then you must take into consideration their abilities. If you manage to master this then you will unlock the path to earning their trust.

Secondly, your design (including your code) needs to be cross-browser complaint. Why should a person viewing your site in IE 7 be seeing sharp corners where a person in Safari is seeing nice rounded corners. Making sure that your site is appearing the (almost) same way everytime called upon will again add to your trustworthiness factor.

Thirdly, endorsements by big brands that have built up their trustworthiness factor contribute immensely to you. For example, an e-commerce stamp of approval from a dedicated organization, or simply a Verified by Visa logo.

There is no concise guide to creating a trustworthy site - but there are definitely measures that can contribute greatly. If you want to go into more detail or read more on this then visit usability guru Jakob Nielsen's following article: Trustworthiness in Webdesign