Browse > Home / Archive: April 2006

| Subcribe via RSS

The Memory Recall Of Pop-Up Advertisements Amongst Experienced Internet Users

April 9th, 2006 | 1 Comment | Posted in College, Internet

Yes, I know that IS a long subject line… it’s the title of my research which has been printed and hard-bound, and handed into the college, and I’ve presented it at the PSI Student Congress. It’s all finally over and done with. So, if anyone is interested in what I’ve been doing for the last 6 months…. read on.

The Memory Recall Of Pop-Up Advertisements Amongst Experienced Internet Users:

The aim of my study was to examine the relationship between Internet experience and memory retention of pop-up advertisements. Participants completed an online survey about their Internet experience, during which a pop-up advertisement appeared. Participants then completed a paper-pencil test examining their recall of the pop-up. This study found no relationship between experience and memory retention, online. However, low memory recall rates of the pop-up advertisement were found. This study also found that the more experienced a user becomes online the more likely they are to use pop-up blocking software. Implications of this research suggest Internet users learn to actively attempt to remove pop-ups from their surfing experience, that pop-ups are ineffective forms of advertising online, and that online advertisers should focus on alternative forms of advertising.

For the completed dissertation you can download a PDF version here or view the online version here.

There’s a couple of things I wish I could have done this year: use the eye-tracker on my participants, test the stress levels of participants using the net with pop-up blocking software and then without. But alas, doing either of those things would have required twice as much work by myself, and I just didn’t have the time or equipment. Maybe for post-grad.

The Vixen Firefox

April 2nd, 2006 | No Comments | Posted in Internet

Mozilla Firefox has a number of features that make it far superior to it’s Microsoft counterpart Internet Explorer (IE). The important ones for the geeks amongst us are the added security features and excellent pop-up blocking, however, it’s stand out feature for me has always been tabbed browsing.

Tabbed browsing allows you to open multiple webpages in a single browser window, instead of your taskbar being cluttered by multiple IE windows. Tabs allow you to quickly flip back and forth between webpages, and drag and drop open tabs to keep related pages together. It doesn’t just un-clutter your taskbar, it uses less memory and is actually faster than IE at opening webpages. Tabbed browsing is not unique to Firefox, it features in other browsers that are not IE, yet, out of all the alternatives to IE, Firefox is a clear winner due to it’s intuitive interface, customisability and accessibility features.

Today, I discovered a preference in Firefox that I had overlooked and yes, this might sound inconsequential, but if like myself you’re getting to grips with the latest Internet craze, RSS Feeds, you might benefit from reading this.

Clicking links within my RSS Reader (I’m currently trying out the Beta version of the Yahoo! RSS Reader that has been embedded in the Yahoo! Mail interface… but that’s a whole other story…) kept opening new Firefox windows, rather than tabs, unless I right-clicked and chose open in new tab. My error was forgetting to right-click, and yet, I continued to make this error. Upon visiting the Mozilla Help: Tips and Tricks webpage I discovered a lovely feature to Firefox that allows you to open external links (opening new webpages, that usually open in a new window no matter what browser you use) in a tab.

Open external links in new windows or tabs:

If another program wants to display a web page in the default browser, Firefox will reuse an existing window by default, which means that it will navigate from a page you might be reading. To stop this, Go to Tools > Options… > Tabs, and under Force links that open new windows to open in: choose a new tab.

Simple, right? Excellent? Yes. I am now happily reading RSS Feeds without annoying myself… too much.