She used Romero's firm to design an ad for one of her clients. Romero has been achieving that kind of result since the Fall of 1997. Based on his research, he devised a set of principles which are now the foundation for every ad his firm develops. These conventions include the frame around a screen and the elements which consistently appear within that frame, most of which were devised by Microsoft as a part of its Windows environment. Romero's banners incorporate these interfaces in their design because people are familiar and comfortable with them, and that, in turn, makes the people who see the banner more likely to notice and use its features.
Animation is good up to a point, but less is more.
The best banners have enough animation to attract the eye, but not so much as to be loud and obnoxious. Romero believes that a flashing cursor is the ultimate in animation. Flashing logos and words, on the other hand, simply turn people off. As behavioral research determined long ago, people are attracted to certain colors and repulsed by others. That principle has long been applied to print advertising, but seems to have been lost in banner ad design.