Just three short weeks before I made the plunge into married life, I decided to take a chance on something that was at that time quite unfamiliar to me. I logged onto Priceline and for the first time ever, I named my own price. I placed a ridiculously low bid for a hotel in Chicago where my wife and I could stay during our honeymoon.

Back then I was a college student and I didn’t have much money. I was willing to take the chance in the faint hope that I might score a great deal.

At 55 dollars per night, I was sure that there were no results that were going to come up positive. But I was wrong.

As the screen flashed and the Priceline website notified me that my hotel room had been reserved at that low price, there was immediately a swelling lump in my gut. At that price, I reasoned, the hotel must be trash. There’s no way that I can rent a nice hotel room in the Chicago land area at that price.

Fortunately I was wrong again.

We soon discovered that Priceline had landed us on the 11th floor of a Hyatt Regency just outside of Chicago in a suburb named Lisle. As we excitedly approached the building, our jaws dropped to the ground. Neither of us were from wealthy families and so as we looked in front of us we saw the nicest hotel that either of us had ever stayed at. We were both amazed and incredibly grateful.

When we checked in and found our way to our room, the excitement intensified. Inside we found an enormous king size bed that was raised high off of the floor. The room was decorated in the nicest contemporary fashions available. The flat screen TV was huge.

We stepped into the room and quickly began to explore. As I pushed the curtains apart, we discovered a view of the surrounding cityscape that went on for miles. Over the course of our week at that hotel, we would stand by that window holding one another and staring off at the lights late into the night.  The view was amazing.

The lump that had been in my stomach was gone and replaced with excitement. Over the course of the next few days, my wife and I would enjoy an amazing experience. We stared out the window at the horizon. We watched TV on the huge flat screen. We saw the sights around town and we had a terrific time.

First Impressions Really are Lasting Impressions

People are visually stimulated critters. We judge books by their covers. We form opinions about cars by how they look. We see king sized beds, big screen TV’s, and beautiful scenery and it creates memories that last a lifetime.  We see something that looks professional and as a result it sticks out in our minds.

As I think back over the course of my honeymoon, the thing that really stands out are the things that we saw. Taking in the sights. Enjoying a contemporary hotel room. Exploring the city. Taking pictures of the historic shops. Those things that looked amazing stood out to me. They left an impression that I won’t ever forget.

This same principle carries over into the online world. Websites that look nice and deliver dynamic first impressions are the ones that really grab their visitors’ attentions.

When we find a website that is so much fun that we can literally describe it as an amazing experience then we tend to bookmark, share, and return to that site again and again.

Group Reflection

Design is so incredibly important. Often it is the most underappreciated aspect of blogging. Too often we forget about creating a site that our users enjoy navigating and interacting on.

What do you think?