ICS Co.Kamloops, BC

Visitors judge your website before they read a word.

Research suggests people form a first impression of a web page in a fraction of a second. We design small-business websites around that fact and around how people actually decide, for Kamloops, Kelowna, Salmon Arm and the BC Interior.

Get my free preview Try the experiments
  • Free preview first of your new site
  • Flat $400 only if you want it
  • Based in Kamloops

Everything orange on this page is meant to be clicked. That is the von Restorff effect at work.

  • First impressions
  • Cognitive load
  • Hick's law
  • Visual hierarchy
  • Processing fluency
  • Trust signals
  • Social proof
  • Von Restorff
  • Peak-end rule
  • Smart defaults
  • Fitts's law
  • Aesthetic-usability

A website that proves its own point.

Most web designers will tell you good design matters. We'd rather you feel it. This page is a small psychology lab: a handful of experiments you can run on yourself, each one showing a principle we use on real small-business sites.

$400 flat. Four steps from hello to live. Twelve principles in the index below. Zero tracking cookies.

People decide fast

First impressions form almost instantly and colour everything after. A site has to look credible and make sense at a glance.

glance

People are busy

Attention is limited. Fewer choices, clearer hierarchy and plain words mean visitors reach the thing they came for.

simplify

People look for proof

Clear contact details, real reviews and local cues help a stranger feel safe enough to call. Only real ones, never invented.

real only

An honest note: our work is grounded in published consumer-psychology research. It is design, not clinical work, and no study can promise a result for your particular business.

Four decisions in the first few seconds.

Scroll through what a stranger's brain tends to do on a small-business site, and what each step means for how we build yours.

  1. 01 · Glance

    A gut feeling arrives first

    In one well-known study, people's snap judgments of a page's look were consistent after about 50 milliseconds. Before reading a word, a visitor has already decided whether this feels credible.

    Principles: first impressions, aesthetic-usability effect

    On your site: a calm, confident first screen that says what you do, where, and for whom.

  2. 02 · Scan

    Eyes skim, they don't read

    Visitors tend to sweep the page in F or Z shapes, favouring the top, the left and anything big or high-contrast. Hierarchy decides what gets noticed.

    Principles: visual hierarchy, cognitive load, Hick's law

    On your site: your name, number and main button sit where scanning eyes already travel, with fewer competing options.

  3. 03 · Trust

    Strangers look for proof

    Before acting, people check for signs that a business is real and local: contact details, familiar place names, genuine reviews.

    Principles: trust signals, social proof (real only), processing fluency

    On your site: your real contact info, your real location and your real reviews, easy to read and never invented.

  4. 04 · Act

    One obvious next step

    When the choice is clear, acting feels easy. The one element that differs from everything else is the one that gets remembered and tapped.

    Principles: von Restorff effect, Fitts's law, smart defaults, peak-end rule

    On your site: one contrasting button, thumb-sized and close at hand, and a friendly confirmation after.

Get my free previewFree first, $400 only if you want the site.

Run the experiments on yourself.

Five quick experiments. Finish each one to stamp it in your lab notebook. Nothing is sent anywhere: any result you see is only yours, and only on your screen.

Lab notebook 0 of 5 stamped

  1. 150 msnot stamped yet
  2. 2Eyesnot stamped yet
  3. 3Hicknot stamped yet
  4. 4Clutternot stamped yet
  5. 5Buildnot stamped yet

Your stamps are saved on this device only.

Experiment 01 · First impressions

The 50 millisecond test

Two fictional plumbing sites will flash by, one after the other, each for about a twentieth of a second. Then you pick the one you would trust more. No time to read, just a gut feeling.

How fast?

To stamp it: make one pick.

One well-known study (Lindgaard et al., 2006) found people's judgments of a page's visual appeal were consistent after as little as 50 milliseconds. Slower and side-by-side modes are there if flashing images are not comfortable for you.

Ready when you are.

Experiment 02 · Visual hierarchy

Where do eyes go?

Switch on the overlay to see where attention tends to land on a typical small-business homepage, and trace the F and Z paths a scanning eye often follows.

Tap the switch. The warm patches mark where scanning attention commonly gathers: logo, phone, headline and the main button.

To stamp it: switch the overlay on and trace both the F and the Z.

Illustration only. This is not real eye-tracking data, just a drawing of well-documented scanning tendencies (the F-pattern is described by Nielsen Norman Group).

ServicesAboutReviews(250) 555-0142

Plumbing, sorted. Same week.

Local and easy to reach. Fictional example business.

Request a visit
RepairsInstallsEmergency

Experiment 03 · Hick's law

Find the booking button

Hick's law says the more options you offer, the longer people take to choose. Your task is simple: click “Book a visit”. Try each menu and watch your own time.

  • 14 items: not tried yet
  • 5 items: not tried yet

To stamp it: find the button in both menus.

One try is a demo, not a study, and the second time you already know what to look for. Your times stay on this page and are not compared with anyone else's.

Choose a menu to begin. The timer starts the moment the menu appears.

Experiment 04 · Cognitive load

Add the clutter

Your brain can only juggle so much at once. Try to find the phone number and the booking button on this fictional page, then flip the switch and try again.

Clean version: one headline, one number, one button. Notice how little effort that takes.

To stamp it: add the clutter, then take it away again.

Cognitive load theory (Sweller, 1988) describes the limits of working memory. On your site, every extra banner, pop-up or competing button spends some of that budget.

HomeServicesBlog

Plumbing, sorted.

Call (250) 555-0142

Book a visit

Experiment 05 · Put it together

Build your homepage

Start with a cluttered, foggy page for a fictional plumber. Switch the principles on one at a time and watch the page reshape itself.

Principles to apply

0 of 7 principles on. Foggy.

To stamp it: switch all seven on.

The clarity dial just counts your switches. It is a toy, not a score of any real website.

© Alder & Co. (fictional)(250) 555-0142

Twelve ideas, in plain language

What each principle says, and what we actually do with it on a small-business site.

First impressions & thin-slicing

The idea: people judge quickly, from very little information.

On your site: a calm, credible first screen that says what you do, where, and for whom.

Cognitive load

The idea: working memory is limited.

On your site: one idea per section, short paragraphs, no pop-up pile-ups.

Hick's law

The idea: more options, slower decisions.

On your site: a short menu and one primary action instead of ten equal ones.

Visual hierarchy & scan patterns

The idea: eyes follow size, contrast and position, often in F or Z shapes.

On your site: your name, phone number and main button sit where scanning eyes already travel.

Processing fluency

The idea: things that are easy to process tend to feel more trustworthy.

On your site: readable type, generous spacing, plain words.

Trust signals

The idea: strangers look for evidence that a business is real.

On your site: clear contact details, your real location and service area, your real credentials.

Social proof

The idea: we look to what others did and said.

On your site: your genuine reviews, quoted accurately and sourced. Never made up.

Von Restorff (isolation) effect

The idea: the one thing that differs is the one thing remembered.

On your site: one contrasting button colour reserved for your main action. On this page, it is orange.

Peak-end rule

The idea: experiences are remembered by their high point and their ending.

On your site: a strong, clear moment of value, and a confirmation that leaves people feeling looked after.

Choice architecture & defaults

The idea: how options are presented shapes what people choose.

On your site: contact forms with tap-to-select options and sensible defaults instead of blank boxes.

Fitts's law

The idea: bigger, closer targets are quicker to hit.

On your site: thumb-sized buttons, and a call button that follows you on a phone.

Aesthetic-usability effect

The idea: people tend to see good-looking things as easier to use.

On your site: polish that makes visitors patient with the page, so the rest of it can do its job.

Further reading
  • Hick, W. E. (1952). On the rate of gain of information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
  • Fitts, P. M. (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology.
  • Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science.
  • Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B. L., Schreiber, C. A., & Redelmeier, D. A. (1993). When more pain is preferred to less. Psychological Science.
  • Tractinsky, N., Katz, A. S., & Ikar, D. (2000). What is beautiful is usable. Interacting with Computers.
  • Reber, R., Schwarz, N., & Winkielman, P. (2004). Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure. Personality and Social Psychology Review.
  • Lindgaard, G., Fernandes, G., Dudek, C., & Brown, J. (2006). Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression! Behaviour & Information Technology.
  • Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge.
  • Nielsen Norman Group, articles on the F-shaped reading pattern: nngroup.com.

Put this on my siteSame ideas, applied to your business. The preview is free.

Drag to see what's possible.

These are example concepts for invented businesses, made to show what a small-business site can look like. Every name, logo and phone number here is fictional. Each pair shows a dated site as it might be, and the redesign we would make for it.

Example concept: a redesigned site for the fictional Tidewell Plumbing & Heat with a bold headline and a clear call to action. An example of a dated plumbing website for the fictional Tidewell Plumbing & Heat, with a bevelled header and crowded text.

Tidewell Plumbing & Heat · Example concept (fictional business)

All businesses shown are fictional examples. They are not real companies and no real business is featured.

One flat price. Preview first.

$400flat, CAD

We build a free preview of your new site first. You look at it, and you pay only if you want it. If you don't, you owe nothing.

Get my free preview

What the $400 covers

  • A mobile-first redesignof your website, built to be quick to load and easy to use on a phone.
  • Copy polisha clearer headline, plain-language wording and sections that are easy to skim.
  • A clear call to actionfor the way you want to be contacted: a call, a form or a booking.
  • Basic on-page SEOsensible page titles, descriptions, headings and local business details.
  • Google Business Profile tipsso your listing and your site tell the same story.
  • Online visibility, tooBeyond the site itself, we can help with tidying up your Google Business Profile, basic local SEO and fast, mobile-friendly pages. These are part of how we help, not separate add-on packages. We can't promise search rankings, since nobody honestly can.

Four steps, one high point.

The peak-end rule says people remember the best moment and the ending. So the process is built around the moment you see your preview and the moment you go live.

  1. 1

    Tell us about your business

    Send a short note about what you do and who you serve. Takes a couple of minutes.

  2. 2the high point

    See your free preview

    We build a preview of your new site and show it to you. No payment, no pressure.

  3. 3

    You review it

    Look it over, ask for changes, or say no thanks. Either way, you owe nothing for the preview.

  4. 4a happy ending

    $400 if you love it, then launch

    Approve it, pay the flat $400, and your site goes live, typically within days of approval.

A small studio, honest about its limits.

We're a small Kamloops studio that applies published consumer-psychology research to web design.

We keep asking one question: why do people trust one business within seconds and bounce from another? Published research gives us the vocabulary to answer it, and building sites gives us somewhere to use it.

We're not clinicians, and this is design, not clinical work. We won't promise you numbers. What we can promise is a thoughtful, honest build that you get to see before you pay.

The studio is based in Kamloops and serves Kamloops, Kelowna, Salmon Arm and the BC Interior.

The honest answers

What's the catch?

No catch that we know of. We build the preview first. If you like it, the redesign is a flat $400. If you don't, you pay nothing for the preview. We do this because seeing is far more convincing than a sales pitch.

Who owns the finished site?

The goal is that you do: your content, your design and your domain. We'll confirm exactly what's handed over, in writing, before you pay anything.

What about hosting and my domain?

We'll go through hosting and domain options with you plainly before you decide, so there are no surprises after the fact. The $400 is the price of the redesign itself.

What if I don't like the preview?

Tell us what you'd change, or just say no thanks. You owe nothing for the preview, and there are no hard feelings.

How long does it take?

It depends on your business and how quickly we can go back and forth, so we don't want to promise a date. Going live is typically within days of approval.

Will this get me to the top of Google?

No one can honestly promise that. What we do is the groundwork: clear page titles and headings, correct local details, fast mobile pages and a tidy Google Business Profile.

Where are you based?

Kamloops, BC. We work with businesses across Kamloops, Kelowna, Salmon Arm and the BC Interior, mostly online.

Does this site track me?

No. There are no tracking cookies or analytics scripts on this site. The experiments run entirely in your browser, and your lab notebook progress is stored only on this device, in your browser, until you reset it.

Let's build your free preview.

Tell us a little about your business. There's nothing to pay to see the preview, and the flat $400 only comes into it if you love the result.

What would help most? (pick any)
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