As the Christmas trading season takes force online, retailers are being urged to ensure their web sites don’t annoy visitors. So what’s the most annoying thing you can do? Add a pop-up advert. According to research from Taylor Nelson, 84% of people find pop-ups “extremely annoying”. Dead links are also a source of significant annoyance as is content that is out of date, slow loading pages and a lack of contact information. These are things that many web sites appear not to worry about, instead focusing their efforts on good design. But the Taylor Nelson study shows that poor design is one of the least annoying things of all. In other words, what this study shows is that you need to get the content right, not the design.
Social networking – don’t invest in it just yet
Social networking is all the rage at the moment – indeed I’ve mentioned it’s value several times already. Social networks are an online extension of your existing offline interaction with people you know. They are