[WikiEN-l] Fundraising Banner

[Michel Vuijlsteke]

2008/11/5 Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>

>
> I realize that having a banner on the site you read and/or edit every
> day is not convenient. We plan to create a smaller (plaintext) version
> of the banner for signed in users. But we do not plan to reduce the
> banner size of the standard banner, at least not until we have a
> better idea of what the online fundraiser revenue will be for this
> year. We are doing some systematic A/B testing of different banners
> with different messages, and as we learn more, we will iterate the
> banners further.


There is quite a body of work on banners and their effectiveness... see e.g.
See http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html?

The most prominent result from the new eyetracking studies is not actually
new. We simply *confirmed for the umpteenth time that banner blindness is
real*. Users almost never look at anything that looks like an
advertisement<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/fancy-formatting.html>,
whether or not it's actually an ad.

What *does *get attention?

there are 3 design elements that are most *effective at attracting eyeballs*:


   - Plain text
   - Faces
   - Cleavage and other "private" body parts

[There is] a fourth approach that breaks one of publishing's main ethical
principles by *making the ad look like content*:

   - The more an ad looks like a *native site component*, the more users
   will look at it.
   - Not only should the ad look like the site's other design elements, it
   should appear to be *part of the specific page section* in which it's
   displayed.

This overtly violates publishing's principle of separating "church and
state" -- that is, the distinction between editorial content and paid
advertisements should always be clear. Reputable newspapers don't allow
advertisers to mimic their branded typefaces or other layout elements. But,
to maximize fixations, that's exactly what you should do in a Web ad.

Michel Vuijlsteke
www.namahn.com