I fielded an interesting question from a visual designer on a project we have been working on. The business client wanted to add animated ad-like messaging near in order to increase the likelihood that the users of the application would notice and read the message that the business team was trying to communicate. This idea did not sit right with the visual designer. She knew that something did not sound right about that idea, but she was not sure why. So she asked me if I knew of any research or studies that I have done that would support or contradict this idea.
Heat Map showing banner blindness
Her assumption was correct. She was referencing something called, “Banner Blindess” which basically means that anything that looks or acts like an ad is usually something that users avoid looking at. Jakob Nielsen discusses this concept at his useit.com website that includes heatmaps from eyetracking studies here. In addition, we have been using eyetracking for several years now and have noticed the same phenomenon. Animated GIFS or Flash banners are something that most users notice but avoid looking at. We have also seen Web Trends data that points out that these types of ads get less than one percent click through rates.
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