When a user sees a banner on a site, they see it as exactly that - a banner. They don't see it as distinct elements on the page, like they would other items. Because the user doesn't see the banner as a group of distinct entities, they are just as likely to try to click on whitespace as they are text or an image. Because of this, banners should always be treated as a single entity when it comes to what they link to.

Also remember that many users at this point have "banner-blindness". If they see something that looks like a banner, they automatically ignore it.

If they really want that area to represent several paths that a user could take, then it should be changed to represent that - make it not look like a banner, and users won't treat it as a banner. They will be more likely to know that there are different things to click on, and they will also be more likely to do so, since the content won't be subconsciously ignored.

Sabz

Tell them it's bad for SEO and they'll stop immediately ;)

On a serious note - do a Krug hallway usability test with your family, friends and document some evidence as why it's a problem.

If you don't do this it will be your opinion (how ever well informed) against theirs. Also if possible offer them a suggestion about how they can achieve their goal without compromising the usability.

Requires a bit of thinking but will help to promote user experience thinking into the business.

All the best,

Matt

Hi Sabz,

I would encourage you to ask why they want to place multiple links on the banner, and why they feel the content they are proposing is important.

It can be difficult to persuade them of the value not to do it, so rather than saying "no", find out why they want to do it and work with them to see if there's a better way to solve the problem. Try not to use present "UX" as a solution, but to work out the solution with them using your UX skills.

Hope this helps!

Boon

Hi Sabz,

I agree with Charles here; the users see the banner as one single entity and will try to click somewhere within the boundaries of the banner, not on the actual text(links).

I would actually prefer more than one link on the banner. I believe that banners that DO something instead of just sitting there as one big button are more effective in getting attention.

Some good banners are more like minisites or galleries. Like this:

Here you have 5 different banners in one "banner-gallery" that points to 5 different pages (the 5 thumnails on the bottom triggers on hover). Not hard to understand or use. See it live on the frontpage of cnet.com (http://www.cnet.com/).

To really settle any dispute about banner-design you should try different designs and track how many users that click on each version. Then the dispute will settle itself... the banner with the most clicks wins. Case closed.

Hi Sabz

I think there is one way to prove them wrong: Tag the Links on the Banner so you can track them in Analytics (I suppose you use Google Analytics...) and show them a) how little traffic the banner generates on the landing pages and b) how bad the quality of the traffic is (because if you are right, the visitors will not click the banner very often and when they do they will leave the landing page very quickly because they didn't end up where they wanted to).

Hope that helps

Phil