In a recent article [Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings], renowned web usability expert Jakob Nielsen reveals that his earlier studies actually found that some of the most annoying methods of advertising were actually more effective, and chose to suppress that information at the time.
I’ve been reluctant to discuss one of the findings from our eyetracking research because the conclusion is that unethical design pays off.
In 1997, I chose to suppress a similar finding: users tend to click on banner ads that look like dialog boxes, complete with fake OK and Cancel buttons. Of course, instead of being an actual system message — such as “Your Internet Connection Is Not Optimized” — the banner is just a picture of a dialog box, and clicking its close box doesn’t dismiss it, but rather takes users to the advertiser’s site. Deceptive, unethical, and #3 among the most-hated advertising techniques. Still, fake dialog boxes got many more clicks than regular banners, which users had already started to ignore in 1997.
He goes on to explain his decision to be more open with the results, and I think it’s a good move.
My only question is why his bi-weekly web column on his site does not have an RSS feed… puzzling.