Animated Gifs: Usability Research Report

[Roz Ault - User Support Technology - ext 377]

There has been some discussion on the list lately about how to
create animated gifs. Web authors (especially librarians) might 
want to take note of recent  research that shows how much users
HATE animation -- at least if they are trying to use a site for
finding information, rather than just surfing around. People in
tests conducted by a usability firm (User Interface Engineering)
would always scroll the animations off the screen if possible,
and if not, they would cover them up with their hands.

The following is excerpted from User Interface Engineering's UIETips:

To say that the animation was distracting to these users would be an
understatement.  It was downright irritating.  ...

... During at least one of our tests,
while trying to answer a question about the lowest fares to England,
an animated ad appeared with the text of "Lowest Fares To London." 
Not only did the user not click on the ad, he swore he never saw it. 
Somehow, the user had "masked" out the animation.  (We saw it -- as
observers it was difficult to *not* see it.)

Our take on this: while retrieving information, users will mask out
animation.  Now, keep in mind that we didn't see any examples of
animation that actually provided content -- all of it was advertising
or decoration.  So, we don't know if you provided an animation on some
procedure that the user needed, whether they would pay attention to
it.   But, gratuitous animation (from a finding information
perspective) didn't work.

The really interesting thing is that, if you go looking, you'll 
quickly come across studies that will tell you that banner 
advertisements with animation get over twice the click-through rates
of non-animation banner ads.  People are more likely to notice, and
click on, an ad with animation.  This is counter to what we found in
our testing.

But click-through is an activity that one does when surfing.  Our
tests were all for finding information. ... 

This difference between the banner ad click-through and our 
results would imply that there is a difference
in surfing and information retrieval.

This implication is serious:  We haven't met any web site designers
who are designing differently, based on whether they though users
would be surfing or searching.  But these results imply that you might
have to do just that: different designs based on the user's goals. 

**********************************
UIETips is produced by User Interface Engineering, a product 
usability consulting firm based in North Andover, MA. 

(c) Copyright 1997
User Interface Engineering           
800 Turnpike Street, #101
North Andover, MA 01845

Phone: (508) 975-4343 
fax: (508) 975-5353
http://www.uie.com
mailto:uie at uie.com

*********************************

- Roz Ault
  ault at faxon.com