Will Plain-Text Ads Continue to Rule?
"In general, advertising doesn't work on the Web, a fact that has been clear to usability researchers since 1997. Users ignore ads because they are contrary to the Web's basic imperative, which is to let users go where they want and get their information needs instantly gratified."
In his article Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design mistake number seven is -
"Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement"
"Selective attention is very powerful, and Web users have learned to stop paying attention to any ads that get in the way of their goal-driven navigation. (The main exception being text-only search-engine ads.)
Unfortunately, users also ignore legitimate design elements that look like prevalent forms of advertising. After all, when you ignore something, you don't study it in detail to find out what it is.
Therefore, it is best to avoid any designs that look like advertisements. The exact implications of this guideline will vary with new forms of ads; currently follow these rules:
- banner blindness means that users never fixate their eyes on anything that looks like a banner ad due to shape or position on the page
- animation avoidance makes users ignore areas with blinking or flashing text or other aggressive animations
- pop-up purges mean that users close pop-up windoids before they have even fully rendered; sometimes with great viciousness (a sort of getting-back-at-GeoCities triumph)."
Oddly enough I found this information while looking for some tips on how to best use Google content based ads. Google content ads are those rectangular shaped text ads you see so many places nowadays, including on CafeJack's sidebar. They are cool in that Google places ads based on the content of the page.
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So what's the point? Most visual ad components on the web are ignored. That's really not news. I've used the web since it's inception in one way or another and I could probably count the number of times I clicked on ads on one hand (maybe two). At least it seems that way.
If I'm reading a page it's very unlikely I will see an ad that makes me want to stop what I'm doing and jump to some other page.
I think I'll use visual ad components to add some style and color to a page for now and keep my day job.
Here's a link to Jakob Nielsen's Biography.
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Here's a book with a forward by Jakob Nielson.
You can also Google for +website +design +useability +readability +navigation and find some interesting reading.
I got some interesting results when I queried Amazon for "Website Design Useability Navigation".
Apparently Website Design has something to do with magic scarves, 1997 Led Zeppelin tour t-shirts and sweat pants. I like it! Even I can handle that ;-)
Good luck and have a great Tuesday.
