Usability and Online Branding
http://infocentre.frontend.com/infocentre/articles/usabilityandonlinebranding.html

Farrell, Tom
Frontend Infocentre
2001

Abstract:

Improving ‘brand experience’ online is not normally regarded as the primary goal of a usability strategy. In some circles usability and branding would even be seen as mutually exclusive, based on the assumption that successful branding relies on ever more garish visual design and an extensive use of animation, audio streaming, or whatever the latest cutting-edge technology might happen to be.