The Method office is full of creative, resourceful people who always have something interesting to share. Recently an article from Forbes.com was circulating. As I clicked the link to the article in my email, the page loaded in my browser, and I began to read it. When I was half way through the second paragraph I couldn't read anymore. I didn't stop because the article lost my interest however, or because I disagreed with the writer's perspective. I was stopped by an ad floating above the article, directly centered in the column itself. As I scrolled the page this obtrusive ad moved right with it. The ironic, and rather sadly poetic part of this experience is that the ad read, "Forbes, Your Opinion Matters". I'm a bit curious, how many readers gave the opinion that they enjoyed dancing visual obstructions over their content? The metaphor of visual screaming ads that resemble midnight in Times Square is growing tiresome. People are overwhelmed with information and are becoming increasingly sensitive to the results of seamless, thoughtful, and apathetic user experience design.
The visualization of the Forbes page shown here differentiates its various types of information by using colored fields. The primary article information is highlighted in magenta, the secondary image information is shown in cyan, and the various types of advertisements are in gray. Only about 15% of this page actually presents content about the article that I went to the page to read. It's disappointing from a signal to noise or data ink (pixel) ratio and inadequate as a user experience. The rest of the page is polluted with banners, towers, and internal promos. Equally as corrupt as the floating ad are the inline ads that are deceptively placed between article paragraphs. It's one thing to dominate the page with ads, and then to make readers maneuver interactions in order to close pop-up windows, but hiding ads within the article is not only insulting to their readers, but I'm sure the writers at Forbes love it too. So in the end I have to wonder, whose opinion really matters?
