Celebrating Holidays and Current Events on the Web

Attract site visitors and customers for the holidays. People worldwide celebrate holidays and traditions. Connect with people by reflecting their values in your website design. We evaluated 56 websites from the U.S., the U.K, and Israel for the following holidays:

• Thanksgiving
• Christmas
• New Year's
• Valentine's Day
• Presidents' Day
• Purim
• St. Patrick's Day

This 62-page report includes 18 design tips for recognizing holidays and special occasions on websites. Discussions and 95 screenshot illustrations supplement our findings.

Topics covered

• Frequency of holiday celebrations
  • 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
• Specialized content and features
  • Content
  • Special sections
  • Special services
  • The local connection
  • Spoofs, myths, legends and traditions
  • Helping last-minute shoppers
• International audiences
  • Different sites for different audiences
  • Presenting simultaneous holidays
  • Local times and dates
  • Using country filters
  • Addressing seasonal changes
• Misleading holiday content
  • Same content, new label
  • Ending holidays on time
  • Starting too early