Brian, I think you should consider how aesthetics impact user impression of web sites. Jakob Nielsen's partner Don Norman has published a book recently about emotional design. Norman points out how "beautiful sites work better." In an unrelated study, Lindgaard et al. were able to demonstrate how web site users form an impression in just 50 milliseconds. The impression formed in the first 50 milliseconds determines how the user evaluates the web site, even after prolonged interaction. Both studies combined strongly suggest that aesthetics are much more important than previously thought. However, if you dismiss parameters requiring human judgment in your study, you will probably miss the aethetics factor completely. Best, Charlie 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, 25(2), 115-126. -- Charlie Breindahl External Lecturer University of Copenhagen + IT University of Copenhagen "For the modern Don Quixote, the windmills have been preprogrammed to turn into knights" - Janet H. Murray