Posted by Alan J. Flavell on 10/02/64 11:46

On Tue, 2 May 2006, Disco Octopus wrote:

> I dont know of any actual surveys of this type of thing,

You could try
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

I'd quote specifically:

* In particular, don't open pages in new windows

and

* Pop-ups are a mistake in their own right.

See also his earlier page on the same general theme
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20021223.html

> but you could
> probably work towards the simple fact that there *are* popup blockers...
> this would indicate that there is a market out there for popup blockers,
> and therefore there are users out there that have specifically requests
> *not* to have popups. You could pose that same argument regarding the
> animated ads, as there are browser options that inhibit animations on
> animated gifs ... not sure about flash ads though.

FlashBlock (moz/firefox extension). Works for me ;-)

See also the cited designmistakes.

There are times when one would *like* to pay attention to an animated
presentation, voluntarily and at one's own convenience. But when it's
fed-in unsolicited, it's nothing better than a distracting nuisance,
preventing the user from concentrating on the information that they
are looking for (and without which, they're unlikely to buy the
product...). Strange how many companies seem determined to shoot
themselves in the foot in this way (and kind-of preverse, really, that
we users go to such trouble to save them from themselves, instead of
just leaving their site and resolving never to return.)

regards

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