Banner blindness

People tend to overlook content that looks like an advert or sits where adverts usually appear.

Attention and perception Mainly on Homepage pages
Where it applies

Three of the eight page areas.

HomepageMainly here CategoryAlso applies SearchNot typical ProductNot typical CartNot typical CheckoutNot typical Post-purchaseNot typical

It also applies sitewide, on every page. See everything at work on Homepage pages

How to use it

Three ways to use it, and one to avoid.

  • Keep delivery terms, offers and key links out of banner-styled blocks and the right-hand rail.
  • Keep delivery terms, offers and key links out of anything animated.
  • State them as plain text beside the content they relate to.
  • Avoid: relying on a rotating carousel to carry an essential message.
What the research found

Searchers miss ad-like content, most of all when looking for something.

Searchers miss banner-styled links and rarely look at or recall ads, more so on goal-directed tasks.

Lab studies found searchers missed banner-styled links and rarely looked at or recalled ads, more so on goal-directed tasks. Hervet and colleagues found most people still fixated an ad at least once. On ecommerce home pages, Resnick and Albert found blindness was strongest for right-hand banners during goal-directed tasks.

Key research

Five sources, each checked.

Last reviewed

Benway (1998) Banner Blindness: The Irony of Attention Grabbing on the World Wide Web Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Read the source Burke, Hornof, Nilsen & Gorman (2005) High-cost banner blindness: Ads increase perceived workload, hinder visual search, and are forgotten ACM Trans. Computer-Human Interaction Read the source Hervet, Guérard, Tremblay & Chtourou (2011) Is banner blindness genuine? Eye tracking internet text advertising Applied Cognitive Psychology Read the source Pernice (2018)Industry Banner Blindness Revisited: Users Dodge Ads on Mobile and Desktop Nielsen Norman Group Read the source Resnick & Albert (2013) The impact of advertising location and user task on the emergence of banner ad blindness: An eye tracking study Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Read the source
Before you use it · UK law

Content that moves automatically for more than five seconds needs a way to pause, stop or hide it (WCAG 2.2.2, Level A).

This is simply a pointer to check, not legal advice. Seek legal advice before you put this principle into action.