Does User Annoyance Matter?

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for March 26 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/annoyances.html
		
Summary:
Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations
is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient,
less pleasant user experience.
It's worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can.
	
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Usability Week 2007 conference

  > Washington, DC, April 22-27
  > London, May 6-11
  > San Francisco, June 18-23

In-depth training:
  > 3-day Intensive Camp: Usability in Practice
  > 3-day Immersion: Tog on Interaction Design

10 specialized full-day tutorials:
  > Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability
  > Application Usability (2 days)
  > Intranet Usability (2 days)
  > B2B Sites
  > Websites That Sell
  > Presenting Company Information on Corporate Websites
  > E-Mail Newsletter Usability
  > Writing for the Web

  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

DEADLINE to save 10% on London registration: next Friday, April 6

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WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF TEXT ONLINE?

The Poynter Institute interviews Chris Nodder about this question:
   > http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=119978

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INTRUSIVE ADS CAUSE 11% DROP IN TRAFFIC

People who used a site stripped of ads reported that they were 11% more
likely to return or recommend the site to others than people who were
exposed to the same site with ads.

The drop in expected future use was even greater in the test condition
where the site used pop-ups or pop-unders.

These findings come from a study by Scott McCoy (College of William and
Mary) and colleagues, published in the March issue of the Communications
of the ACM. Full paper at:
   > http://tinyurl.com/ynrp3l

This is self-reported data, so it's not necessarily true that the loss of
usage from intrusive ads is exactly 11%. However, there is no doubt that
such design elements are annoying and that annoyances *will* cause users
to turn to other sites.

For data on *how* annoying different kinds of ads are, see:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20041206.html