Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored by Jakob Nielsen.

Jakob likes it Jakob is undecided Jakob doesn’t like it

Three-point rating scale

One site did most things right, but still had a miserable 14% success rate for its most important task. The reason? Users ignored a key area because it resembled a promotion.

* Guideline #19: Don’t use clever phrases and marketing lingo.
* Guideline #63: Limit font styles and other text formatting.
* Guideline #91: Don’t look like an ad.
* Guideline #4: Emphasize the highest priority tasks so that users have a clear starting point.
* Guideline #29: Use examples to reveal the site’s content. Rather than just describing what the site offers, the Census homepage states the actual population number. Juicy content for this type of site.
* Guideline #53: Offer tools for high-priority tasks directly on the homepage. The Population Finder is exactly such a tool, and obviously attracted users. (We also asked people to find the population of Texas, and the success rate was much higher for this task.)