Of course, we all want to make money on the web, our web design clients especially. And most users – even the ones who never click anything – understand that. Statistics shows that an average website visitor doesn’t mind ads as long as they don’t interfere with the browsing experience. Oh, but those others! Below are the most annoying advertising designs.
- Pop-ups
Done with a simple Javascript ‘alert’ function, pop-ups are the oldest hated ads on the web. Almost obsolete since most browsers may be configured to not display them anyway.
- Talking ads
Users cannot stand talking ads that “whistle” and “yell” for attention. They hate these, and they might also get fired for browsing the web at work when their web browser suddenly starts chattering and they forget they have the sound up.
- Expanding banners
The corner kind are OK, as they are easy to recognize and don’t intrude onto the main parts of the page. But when you have the flat kind that drop down over the web page like a curtain, it’s irritating.
- Floating boxes
Floating boxes in web design are the Javascript dealies that have replaced pop-ups. Browsers cannot block them without turning off Javascript completely. A Javascript box coasting in after a minute and hovering in the center of the page with no visible way to turn it off just drives the user somewhere else.
- Misleading linked text
This might be not-so-annoying, if only the link went somewhere that had something to do with the article. However an adlink going to a swimsuit site in the middle of an article about hamsters is infuriating.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Brandon Olson. Brandon Olson said: Web Design: The Most Annoying Web Page Ads | NexusLab http://bit.ly/33kcHV [...]
You forgot popunders – the ones that pop up and immediately minimize and switch focus to the other window, so the user cannot close them immediately witout the page having had a chance to load itself completely. Another annoyance is when a web page author has set the web page to open new windows if you click anywhere on the page – even not on a link – I have seen it before. Another annoyance is the things that appear when you hover your mouse over double underlined links – in the form of kontera, infolinks, clicksor or snap previews. I agree website admins and webmasters have to monetize their sites but these are scourging/infringing on the ‘web experience’. I havent installed adblock for I like to see quality ads, but I believe adblock can get rid of the double-underline ads that pop up on mouse hovers.
[...] Web Design: The Most Annoying Web Page Ads | NexusLab [...]