Okay, at the behest of Lisa, I'm coming back in to provide some additional feedback I sent her in private. And while I'm at it, I'm going to provide a polite, somewhat-extended set of notes (my brain wants to write "diatribe") on why this new ad just isn't working for me.
Note: I see that the ads have temporarily stopped? (There's just a little x right now like Liz_V is noting...so I'm assuming there's behind the scenes discussions going on
)
Now, on to Winks rambling out loud...
First of all, when I log in to AW, I'm coming here primarily for a forum experience wherein I can easily engage with my fellow writers, research writing tips and publishing questions I may have, post my own work for feedback and provide extended critiques of other writers' works. I don't want a lot of "noise" interfering with that experience. I'm in marketing myself, so I understand the need for ads; however, given my expectations for what I'm coming to AW, any "noise" in the form of ads that directly takes away from, distracts, and frankly interferes with my ability to engage on this forum is disruptive for me as a user and it makes me just a little more tempted to go see if there's some other writers' forum that doesn't have such annoying things taking away from my user experience I've come to expect and enjoy at AW. Please note: this is NOT me making threats. This is me explaining from a user's perspective the pitfalls and detrimental effects negative impacts to the user experience could have for AW's engaged user base...which could mean less users overall, less potential ad viewers, less share of voice for AW, yadda yadda.
So, how specifically is the new stickie ad disrupting my personal user experience? Well, I normally visit AW on my laptop, which is a smaller, compact screen - we're talking 11" baby. It's also a touch-screen computer. Alternatively, I sometimes use my IPad for AW participation, which is an even smaller screen, and is also touch screen. So, bearing that in mind, this results in several things: 1) that moving ad takes up significant real estate on my screens, which makes it harder for me to read on the page I'm on AND reply in the Quick Reply box at the bottom of threads, which is my go-to spot of choice. Extremely annoying. And what does Winks do? She turns the ad off. Or tries to.
This leads to 2) where I've breathed a sigh of relief because no more ad, right? (After I've probably fat-fingered it on my touch screen and accidentally gone to the ad when I really didn't want to in the first place because I don't want other marketers thinking I'm interested in that skiing thingy or that movie ad or whatever and then spending the next several days retargeting me with those same ads in all the OTHER banner ads I see at the top...*cough*). Back to that sigh of relief when I turned it off. Now I happily click on the view next page in thread, or I go to "What's New" or my "Settings" or anywhere else...aaaaaaand the Ad's back again. And I have to turn it off to see anything. Again. Given this is a writer's forum and I'm probably on here researching things, responding to other writers, and browsing my bookmarked threads, that's going to get real annoying, real fast. *picture Winks' eye starting to twitch a little as she stabs at her computer screen*
3) Now, as I try to load and browse screens like I usually do in that speedy load time I've come to expect on AW, that extra sticky ad also hampers my scroll - my browser freezes up a little as I try to scroll while the Ad takes its sweet time deciding to load, and oh look, I accidentally stabbed the Ad open again when I tried to close it so I could scroll properly and hope my browser didn't slow down. *Winks starts to glare and mutter*
4) I think, oh, hey, I'll just zoom out on my browser so I can see around the Ad as it's getting really annoying to close it every.single.time.i.switch.pages...but hey, that means I'm trying to squint and read eensy weensy font because I'm on 11" or less screens, remember? And I already have glasses. I don't need to make my eyesight worse.
This finally results in me politely starting this thread asking about the Ad, hoping it's a test and that I'll get my super awesome AW user experience back that I'm used to. Also, as a fellow marketer, if I'm already pissed off and stabbing at the ad to close it because it's interfering with what I came here to do, I'm MUCH less liable to be inclined to click on said ad for a buying experience. Said ad has already wrecked one user/customer experience I was having - why would I possibly want to buy something from the harbinger of said Winks-almost-goes-Hulk-on-her-computer experience?
So yes, this is really a diatribe in disguise, but this is not directed at Lisa or Mac. I just want to share my frustrations and I appreciate the openness and encouragement on this forum to do so, hoping that it will bear fruit in the form of constructive dialogue with the ad company so as to maintain the integrity of the user experience we have all come to enjoy on AW. I know Lisa works her butt off to make sure AW works well from a technical perspective; please don't let Ads like this detract from the usability of the forums. This sounds like a flounce to say this, but the lurkers in my reppies agree about the distractions this is causing. And I would hate to see those critters migrate to other sites for a better user experience based on some ad, or come in to crit work in SYW less often because the ads are too distracting.
Hope this helps and is taken in the spirit it is offered. Happy to clarify on anything I've said. And hey, if others disagree or have had different experiences today with the pilot ad, chime in. Data points are very useful when it comes to testing these kinds of things out. Marketers like data so that they can be sneaky and get you to buy stuff, without being annoying
Good luck sorting this out, Lisa and Mac. And thanks again for listening to your user base.
Sincerely,
Winks, who really hopes Ari isn't snickering and taking out her red pen on this post.