peterbaker:

Last week the NY Times Bits blog reported on a study, conducted by web usability expert Jakob Nielsen, that shows how generic and/or bad photography is ignored by people visiting websites.

My guess is that this photo from the Yale School of Management actually shows real students; stock photos would rarely be this poorly cropped or show models slouching (as with the guy in the blue shirt).

Still, on this particular page, the photo is pure filler. Users are here to understand the school’s application process, not to judge the degree of student slouch.

Most likely, the dean or other manager asked designers to “jazz up” the page so the university would look more exciting and thus attract more applications. But on the Web, jazzed-up = ignored.

Moral of the story; hire a good a photographer and use photography well. 

Super interesting and highly relevant to what I do every day.