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10/30/2001 Entry: "30-Oct-2001 -- Usability Folks Hate Pop Ups"

Usability Folks Hate Pop Ups (CHI-WEB) -- "In summary most of you suggested doing usability tests with some target users and having my customers watch. Your experience from testing and watching users is that the experienced users avoid popups and close them as soon as they appear." (Comments: Several good points are made. Some references and data are included.)

Replies: 2 comments

Contrary to the comments in this article, we have found through our usability testing that the pop-ups that we’ve incorporated in a web redesign project proved to be quite successful. The pop-ups were used to reference an “informational” icon that provides assistance with a particular piece of the page. Almost all of our test participants used the Info pop-ups and provided positive feedback. I would reevaluate the implementation of these if they did not work well for your project.

Posted by Scott @ 11/01/2001 02:44 PM EST

Let's draw a distinction with pop-ups. Users are inclined to accept a pop-up when it arrives in response to a specific information request. For example, in customizing a PC for purchase through Dell.com I can click for more information about specific hardware components. In seeing the pop-up appear I am inclined to view it because I expect it to contain valuable information.

Contrast that with pop-ups that appear unexpectedly. Those pop-ups are more likely to be considered advertising or useless information and be closed before the page loads.

Posted by JS @ 11/01/2001 04:55 PM EST

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