A colleague and I were recently griping about how much we hate clicking on links that open a PDF document instead of a web page. The link looks innocent enough like "Plan Information" until you click then lo and behold the browser window goes white while a 8 mb PDF file uses up all of computer's processing power to open up. It is the most annoying thing I can possibly think of with the web. A simple "Plan Information (PDF, 8 mb)" would alert me to the level of commitment I am getting into when I click that link. If I saw that, I wouldn't click it unless I really wanted that piece of information.

The thing that kills me about most of these PDFs is that the payoff, if your browser doesn't crash, is so very disappointing. Most of the time it is text that can easily be converted to HTML or it's a bloated brochure with lots of pretty pictures. This colleague recently forwarded me a newsletter from an Irish customer experience guy named Gerry McGovern who wrote on this very topic...Check it out: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2007/nt-2007-02-05-pdf.htm