Summary

We surveyed a sample of 56 websites from the U.S., U.K., and Israel on each of seven holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day, Purim, and St. Patrick's Day. On average, 21% of the sites displayed holiday material during the 7 holiday periods we targeted for the survey.

Major holidays were celebrated much more than this average indicates. The greatest extent of holiday celebrations was found for Purim on Israeli sites (83%) and Christmas on American (47%) and British (42%) sites.

Richly illustrated with 95 screenshots of a broad spectrum of websites and their holiday celebrations. The report includes examples from some additional holidays besides the seven that were studied systematically.

The report includes 18 design tips for best practices in recognizing holidays and special occasions on websites.

> Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox summarizing the report 

Table of Contents

62-page report.

1. Overview
2. Frequency of Holiday Celebrations
3. Types of Presentation
   • Minimal presentation
   • Logo change
   • Homepage graphics
   • Multimedia content
   • Splash pages
   • Color schemes
   • Changing the entire homepage
   • Banner ads and promotions
   • Sequential stories
   • Systematic design
4. Specialized Content and Features
   • Content
   • Special sections
   • Special services
   • The local connection
   • Spoofs, myths, legends and traditions
   • Helping last-minute shoppers
5. International Audiences
   • Different sites for different audiences
   • Presenting simultaneous holidays
   • Local times and dates
   • Using country filters
   • Addressing seasonal changes
6. Misleading Holiday Content
   • Same content, new label
   • End holidays on time
   • Don't start too early

Who Should Read This Report?

• Anybody who is responsible for the design or implementation of a website that may want to recognize a special occasion, especially e-commerce sites, news sites, corporate sites, and children's sites.

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