In consecutive meetings with clients (one late yesterday, one early today), I spoke about those items within a Web page that we try to call special attention to (i.e. call-out graphics, announcement-related icons, etc.) but end up doing the inverse in the process. One client, who was particularly sharp, characterized the effect as 'banner blindness.' If I encapsulate a message in a location outside the main navigation, give it some color and animation, and place it in a high value location, it tends to be mistaken for an ad or ad banner and ignored altogether. A quick Google search on the term (I was sort of curious if she had coined it on the fly) led me to a study that was conducted in 1998 by Jan Benway of Occidental College and David Lane of Rice University.

After being embarassed that it's taken me seven years to hear about this effect, I concluded that their study had some interesting findings that semmingly substantiate a point: Web surfers are used to seeing certain things in certain places (i.e. logo on the upper-left hand corner, your organization's phone number on the 'contact us' page, etc.). When we change the game, we tend to confuse the visitor and miss the mark by a long shot.

You learn something new everyday I guess.