In a study at Kansas State University in the United States, surfers were asked to look through a website and then draw a diagram of how the site was organised.

Most of the resulting drawings were inaccurate, grouping together similar bits of information rather than reflecting the real layout of the site.

Web design is of key importance, particularly to commercial sites trying to persuade shoppers to spend time and money buying products over the net.

Different vision

"We had people drawing web pages on their diagrams that didn't even exist," said psychologist Keith Jones who led the team of researchers.

Jones: Web designers need to rethink

"People don't remember individual pages as much as they remember categories. People don't remember websites the way web designers think about it," he said.

Mr Jones believes designers should organise information on websites in categories that are obvious to users.

"We argue that designers need to focus on how users mentally organise the information that is displayed," he said.

"People have a certain idea of how certain pieces of information are organised.

"You have to present the information in a way that is consistent with how people think about how those things are grouped together," he said.

Keeping it simple

Other experts have questioned web design in the past.

Net guru Jakob Nielsen has repeatedly criticised sites for being too pretty and clever for their own good.

He has championed the idea of web usability, making sites work for the user by keeping them simple.

He believes designers can often take their work too seriously, with the result that websites are less easy to use and ultimately less satisfying.