Only 37% of reports meet an acceptable standard of usability. And while tighter budgets in 2003 might have something to do with the drop in ease of use, companies can't blame budgets entirely because there are low-cost ways to publish annual reports online in usable formats.

IR Web Report's latest survey of online annual reports follows two earlier ones which studied the reports of 100 of the world's biggest companies drawn from the S&P Global 1200. All three surveys included 37 US-based companies, 28 from Europe, 10 from the United Kingdom, 10 from Japan, nine from Canada, and six from Australia. The list provides good insights into the practices of the largest and most resourceful companies.

The main theme of this year's survey was the marked decline in the overall usability of the year's reports. Companies in the survey are making more basic errors than they did in the prior year, while fewer are investing time to present their reports in HTML and/or usable PDF. This is not a good sign as it means that fewer companies are communicating their messages to investors effectively through their online reports. It also means they are making it harder for investors to research their companies and make sound judgments.

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