In second place come multiple pop-ups. They caused participants’ blood pressures to rise from 108 mm Hg to 130 mm Hg. The pop-ups participants saw during the experiment included newsletter subscriptions, discount codes, sale awareness and trial offer pop-ups. Participants stated that the use of multiple pop-ups was ‘annoying’ and ‘unnecessary’.
In third place on this list is 'auto-play music' as participants’ blood pressure elevated by an average of 20%, from 106 mm Hg to 127 mm Hg. Users thought the unwelcome blaring of auto-play music on the websites was ‘infuriating’ and ‘disruptive’.
|
Website issues causing the most stress |
|||||||||
|
Rank |
Website Issue |
Average Blood Pressure (mm Hg) Before Dealing with Website Issue |
Average Blood Pressure (mm Hg) After Dealing with Website Issue |
% Change (from Before to After) |
|||||
|
1. |
Slow loading pages |
111 |
134 |
21% |
|||||
|
2. |
Multiple pop-ups |
108 |
130 |
20% |
|||||
|
3. |
Auto-play music |
106 |
127 |
20% |
|||||
|
4. |
Broken pages (i.e. 404 Error) |
107 |
125 |
17% |
|||||
|
5. |
Auto-play videos |
104 |
121 |
16% |
|||||
|
6. |
Non-clickable call-to-action buttons |
105 |
120 |
14% |
|||||
|
7. |
Hard to read fonts |
104 |
118 |
13% |
|||||
|
8. |
Images not loading |
101 |
113 |
12% |
|||||
|
9. |
Multiple image sliders |
99 |
109 |
10% |
|||||
|
10. |
Disorienting animations |
102 |
107 |
5% |
|||||
|
110 participants were assigned for each website issue category. Systolic (mm Hg) blood pressure readings used for study.The age range of participants in the study was between 20 – 58 years and none of the participants had any illnesses/health conditions before taking part in the study. None of the participants in the study had a working and/or educational background in information systems (IT), technology or web development/design. All included participants stated they were ‘very confident’ or ‘confident’ users of the internet prior to the study. |
|||||||||
.jpg&h=334&w=500&q=100&v=20250320&c=1)
.jpg&h=334&w=500&q=100&v=20250320&c=1)
+(900+x+600+px).jpg&h=334&w=500&q=100&v=20250320&c=1)
.jpg&h=334&w=500&q=100&v=20250320&c=1)
.jpg&h=334&w=500&q=100&v=20250320&c=1)
+(900+x+600+px)+(3).jpg&h=268&w=401&q=100&v=20250320&c=1)
+(900+x+600+px)+(2).jpg&h=268&w=401&q=100&v=20250320&c=1)
