For: Weinschenk Consulting, PO Box 226, Edgar, WI 54426.
Contact: Susan Weinschenk, (800) 236-2599, susan@weinschenk.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kill Those Pop-up Screens Before Customers Kill You, 
Advises Web Usability Psychologist Susan Weinschenk 
As Unrequested Browser Screens Proliferate Like Cockroaches

Edgar, WI, August 1, 2001 - More and more, travelers on the World Wide Web need to bring along a swatter as pop-up (or pop-under) screens jump onto their monitors and sometimes even spawn offspring while the exasperated user tries valiantly to close them. Although some marketers claim that pop-up screens increase subscription rates, psychologist Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., reports that they annoy users in ways that are bound to backfire on the sites that inflict them on visitors.

"In our lab, we see users closing pop-up screens as quickly as possible, even before the pop-ups finish loading," says Weinschenk, who heads Weinschenk Consulting Group (www.weinschenk.com), a firm that studies people's responses to Web sites and software. "They're definitely annoyed, and annoyed people leave a site sooner and are less likely to return. Furthermore, the pop-up screen distracts them from their task. They might have been trying to purchase something." 

Weinschenk points to the well-established principle of human behavior that people do not like getting things that they didn't ask for. She says the pop-up screens differ from other forms of advertising that annoy some people, such as radio jingles or ads in toilet stalls, because only pop-up screens force the user to take action to make the ad go away.

"People who feel pestered at a Web site transfer their annoyance onto the company that appears responsible for it," says Weinschenk. "Consequently pop-up screens are not a plus for your image."

For companies wishing to please users rather than harass them, Weinschenk Consulting offers a free Online Usability checklist at http://www.weinschenk.com/our_tools/online_checklist.asp.

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