Studies of how people react to online advertisements have identified several design techniques that impact the user experience very negatively.
Advertising is an integral part of the Web user experience: people repeatedly encounter ads as they surf the Web, whether they're visiting the biggest portals, established newspapers, or tiny personal sites. Most online advertising studies have focused on how successful ads are at driving traffic to the advertiser, using simple metrics such as clickthrough rates.
Unfortunately, most studies sorely neglect the user experience of online ads. As a result, sites that accept ads know little about how the ads affect their users and the degree to which problematic advertising tricks can undermine a site's credibility. Likewise, advertisers don't know if their reputations are degraded among the vast majority of users who don't click their ads, but might well be annoyed by them.
Now, however, we have data to start addressing these questions. At my recent User Experience 2004 conference, John Boyd from Yahoo! and Christian Rohrer from eBay presented a large body of research on how users perceive online advertising. Here, I offer a few highlights from their presentation (my comments on their findings are solely my responsibility).
What's Bad
When users were asked how various aspects of online ads affected their Web experience, they rated the following attributes most negatively.
Design Element Users Answering
"Very Negatively"
or "Negatively"
Pops-up in front of your window
95%
Loads slowly
94%
Tries to trick you into clicking on it
94%
Does not have a "Close" button
93%
Covers what you are trying to see
93%
Doesn't say what it is for
92%
Moves content around
92%
Occupies most of the page
90%
Blinks on and off
87%
Floats across the screen
79%
Automatically plays sound
79%
These numbers are based on 605 respondents in 2004; similar numbers were found in 2002 and 2003.
People often have strong negative visceral reactions to ads that commit the sins listed in the table. One user, referring to an ad that automatically started playing audio, wrote: "IF ANYTHING COULD BE WORSE THAN POP-UPS, THIS IS IT. I HATE THIS AD. HATE HATE HATE."
Another user entered the following comment on a major website's feedback form: "You people should be ashamed of yourself! I did not ask to have 3 pop ups come across my screen when I visit you. I do not visit singles sites, and I don't want to add 4 inches to my penis. As a matter of fact, I don't use any of the services that pop up on my screen. I think it is disgusting that you money hungry bastards have infringed on my computer for your own selfish gain. From this moment on, I am boycotting you, and I am advising EVERYONE I know to do the same thing. Down with you and your pop up ads."
Although it vividly illustrates user frustration with pop-ups, this second comment is unfair because the site didn't host or advocate the offending ads. The ads were delivered by "spyware" that the user had unwittingly installed. In addition to showing the strong feelings engendered by intrusive or irrelevant ads, the comment also illustrates the extent to which pop-ups have become associated with unsavory content.
Users have started to defend themselves against pop-ups . The percentage of users who report using pop-up or ad-blocking software increased from 26% in April 2003 to 69% in September 2004, which is an astonishing growth rate.
Users not only dislike pop-ups, they transfer their dislike to the advertisers behind the ad and to the website that exposed them to it. In a survey of 18,808 users, more than 50% reported that a pop-up ad affected their opinion of the advertiser very negatively and nearly 40% reported that it affected their opinion of the website very negatively.
People are getting ever-more annoyed by pop-ups: During a fourteen-month period from December 2001 to February 2003, user ratings of pop-up advertisers grew more negative by almost one full rating point on a 1 to 7 scale.
What's Good
Not many ads are actively loved by users, but some advertising techniques do have a positive impact on the user experience. Users were particularly pleased with ads that clearly:
indicate what will happen if people click on them,
relate to what people are doing online,
identify themselves as advertisements,
present information about what they are advertising, and
provide additional information without having to leave the page.
These design elements are tightly connected to traditional Web usability guidelines: make the users' options clear, speak plainly, and provide the information users want.
Lessons for Websites
Sites that accept advertising should think twice before accepting ads that 80 to 90% of users strongly dislike. The resulting drop in customer satisfaction will damage your long-term prospects.
Advertisers themselves might be tempted to continue with these nasty design techniques as long as they can find sites that will run them. After all, they typically yield higher clickthrough rates. But clickthrough is not the only goal. Users who are deceived into clicking on a misleading ad might drive up your CTR, but they're unlikely to convert into paying customers. And your brand suffers a distinct negative impact when you antagonize customers and use techniques that are associated with the worst scum on the net.
Corporate websites can also learn from these studies, even if they don't run ads. Many elements that users dislike in ad design are also common in mainstream Web design, with equally bad affects. A few things to avoid:
Pop-ups
Slow load times
"Teasing" links, misleading categories, and other elements that trick users into clicking
Content that doesn't clearly state the site's purpose or what a particular page covers
Content that moves around the page
Sound that plays automatically
All of these techniques have caused problems in traditional usability studies of non-advertising sites, and I've warned against them many times before. The fact that they're associated with the most hated ads is one more reason that respectable sites should avoid them at all costs.
Happy New Year to all! We hope that this year brings to each of you hope and good fortune.
The Staff of Webtivity Designs!
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Income and the Internet- 2005
Now when I read this article I was surprised, who does these studies anyway? Is it true that making $30,000.00 and under means that you are at poverty level and probably do not have a computer or Internet access? According to this report over half of Americans are in that range. Hmmm….makes you wonder if you should not have tried harder at football eh?
Kingsley Center for Girls - The Unveiling of a Website
We met Joyce Scott, in Desoto County in 2002, at an Expo held in the new Convention Center that was recently the home to hundreds during the hurricanes. As a sales person I try to never miss an opportunity to talk about Webtivity Designs, 1/ I believe in our company, in our employees and what we do, 2/ it is how I make my money.
So in my wandering I stopped by the booth manned by Joyce and her assistant, and told them what we could offer to their organization.
Two years down the road the talk turned into
a reality when we had the unveiling at the Board
Members Luncheon held at The Kingsley Center
for Girls. Not only have we designed and host
the web site we also sit on the board and invite
speakers to the WARM Program, Women as Role
Models. The facility houses young women from
12 to 18 that have become involved in the judicial
system. I have visited and spoken there several
times, it is sometimes heartbreaking and other
times uplifting to hear the stories these young
women tell of what has brought them to this
place in life. The Center is always on the lookout
for people to offer a message of hope and inspiration.
Please go to the web site and read more about
this program and if you have something to give
back, contact Joyce and spread the Hope.
No, we are not doing movie reviews; I am trying however to make a point.
Have you been overwhelmed with the ranking idea? That if you are not number 1 on Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and the other Search Engines that your site will not bring business.
Ask yourself this question, how many times
has someone raved about a great restaurant and
it is on a hidden street back in the middle
of nowhere, you went there and oh my goodness
what food, what atmosphere, what service! Then
you try the restaurant that has gotten great
reviews by those folks who are paid to do a
ranking report, you know the one with the little
forks, and it is fancy, upscale and downtown
on Main Street . You go in and are asked if
you have a reservation, sheepishly you bow your
head and say, “No, I didn't think I would need
one”, you look around and there are three tables
full. The Host looks down his long nose at you
and huffs, then takes you to a dark corner,
where you are baffled by the prices, amazed
at the prices, shocked at the prices and you
just know that some football player must eat
here. Then you order the item on the menu that
you think you recognize, and it comes out 30
minutes later and is pretty enough not to eat,
but is it good? No, the place on the back street
that someone told you about, that you had to
drive to find, fulfilled everything that you
wanted. It had the atmosphere, the price and
the service to keep you coming back.
That is how a web site is, how a business is in general, it has to fulfill someone's need, and it has to offer a service at a price that is affordable.
Does that mean that you should not be concerned about rankings, keywords and Search Engines? Absolutely not!
After finding one of those HIGH RANKING companies, you will probably search for the place that someone tells you about or has a proven track record of good service, at a price that you can afford and that place may very well be off the beaten path of page number 1.
While doing the research for the article
for ranking, as well as having Bob our marketing
Guru feed me with e-mail after e-mail of the
SEO importance, I am overwhelmed with how it
all works. Are you?
The idea is to have sites that are relevant to your site listed on a page and link to them, as well as have them link back to you. Linking to sites that are not relevant will not help your site, but may hurt it.
O.k., so, I have a site called, The Red High
Heel Shoe Company and what sites should I link
to? Sites that sell shoes, leather sites, the
local Chamber of Commerce, areas that offer
the history of High Heels? Or should I link
at all, should I just fill up my page with text
about Red High Heel Shoes?
Now if Bob and myself get confused, what is
the layperson supposed to think? According to
the article, I have just finished, linking and
ranking are still a hit and miss and what works
today may not work tomorrow.
Also whom do you believe? Relevant Pages, Image light, Image heavy, No flash, No graphic navigation only text, sized headers, and footers, site maps, search bars, heavily filled text with keywords. One expert says one thing and the other expert says something else.
It is like the eating bacon theory, its going to kill you the experts say, so how do they explain Uncle Elmo living to 106, eating eggs and bacon every day since he was three, drinking, cussing and smoking too, but that is another story.
Do we have an answer to this dilemma? No, until the SEO become more indexed by the actual information that the site has relevancy to, you may still look for a Cinderella DVD for your daughter and get Porn on the Search engine.
Like a Librarian that uses the Title or the
Author to locate a book, until the search engines
begin to use a more unified system we will continually
be bombarded by the right way and the wrong
way to increase rankings and user friendly indexing.
The one thing that we agree on here at Webtivity Designs is that we stay within the guidelines that are legal and will not get your site banned from the search engines.
Can we promise anything more than that? No, however we can offer a list of companies that spend all of their time on this research and strangely enough many of the areas that are not supposed to increase the rankings are what they use.
To Blog or not to Blog, is that Really a Question?
Until this year of elections I had not heard too much about Blogs. Bob, our Marketing Guru says that they will increase Google rankings and are search engine friendly. Well having read the other articles in this newsletter, what really works?
Bob is persistent though and began to do his homework, once again sending the e-mails with all of these articles written by all of these other Marketing Gurus regarding the Blogs.
So… we now have a Blog and Bob is the article keeper of the Blog. Our own Blog Man.
Do you need a Blog on your site; they cannot hurt your ranking and may help. Is there a fee for creating a Blog? No, there is not. Bob can tell you of several that are very good and easy to set up. Now why should you Blog? A Blog is a diary of sorts, and you can make it as personal or impersonal as you like.
For Webtivity designs we keep the focus on relevant articles about the Internet. We archive the older stories. The point is to continue this part of your site regularly or like a site that is not maintained it becomes dusty and unused and at that point you should pull the Blog from your page. So if a Blog interest you and you would like to find out where and how to get started, give Bob a call, he would be happy to assist, that is what Gurus do.
Creativity: This is a word that comes up
a lot in our business. How to be creative, how
to create, creating the site, creating the logo,
creating the idea. This is not an easy job.
Where does creativity come from? Inspiration,
timelines, group sessions, depression, joy,
or just good old fashion hard work combined
with hours of research. I have seen designers
stare at the screen trying come up with a creative
concept. I have sat in on group meetings where
we all added our thoughts and ideas together
to create something. I have heard of people
who are alcoholics and drug addicts who have
been inspired during the haze that create the
best music of their lives or the best pictures
or the best performance.
So, how do we create web sites that are attractive,
easy to navigate and are unique? We work at
it and we research.
I heard one time that the highest form of a compliment was to be copied and since coming up with a totally original idea, color, plans, or layout is near impossible, given the amount of information at our fingertips, we resort to research.
What is your company representing, what colors do you like, what are you using your site for, is it a brochure, sales, advertisement, what does your competition do, how do they look?
We have to listen to your ideas and then be sure that we have communicated our understanding of what you are looking for us to provide. Just having a feeling will not work, there must be some concrete ideas to follow. Sometimes those ideas come from viewing sites that you as a client find attractive and following that path of creativity, sometimes staring at the screen works, then sometimes, the deadline works, and then of course there is the meeting of the minds that inspire us to view things from a different perspective. Creativity is a try and fail process, and we do try and we do fail. We keep trying and that is truly the idea of creativity.
In order to offer our clients higher quality
service, more effectively and efficiently, we
have created a client survey. This customer
satisfaction index will allow Webtivity Designs
to locate the areas of dissatisfaction and lack
of communication, which may not have been expressed
to us directly.
Without the interaction that is essential to
a fruitful client relationship, we will remain
in the dark and that is what this survey will
do, bring Webtivity Designs into the light.
We have decided to mail this out and send it
with a self addressed stamped envelope. The
survey is short and to the point.
Our goal is to have all those who receive a
survey to return it anonymously, allowing us
to know where we are lacking, then correcting
that area, and also to hear of the topics that
clients would like to have improvement on, from
Webtivity Designs.
For those who receive this survey your input
is invaluable to our improvement, as you effect
all that we do. Please take a moment and complete
this form and return it to us here at Webtivity
Designs.
Do these titles really go together, isn't
it either Designing or Programming? Not in this
case. Your company may be in need of a type
or style of programming that is specific to
your business and you are tired of using the
outdated time consuming method. Now where do
you go to find a program to fit your needs?
Webtivity Designs. We can create
a program that will be built to your specifications
and your needs, as limited or detailed as necessary.
One of our previous employees was the programming
finders King, he could find programming to fit
all types of needs and categories. Problem was,
much of these type of packaged services are
limited within a parameter of what they can
and cannot do. They are not easily manipulated
and are sometimes coded so poorly that even
though you saved money on the purchase of one
these online programs you cannot use the darn
thing. We offer designer programming custom
built, custom designed and installed with a
step-by-step “How To” that is simple to follow,
in a PDF Format.
If you are looking for an inventory control program, a dispatch program, a survey program or a newsletter designed specifically for your business, let Webtivity Designs propose the programming for you. There is never a fee for consultation.
