The companies that passed the advanced criteria are providing the very best reports for online viewing and use. Their reports put information in easy reach of investors and enable researchers to quickly and easily retrieve specific information or browse the report for general interest.

PDF annual reports are principally useful only for printing, and sometimes for offline reference for experienced users. But they are not usable for online browsing, which is how most individual investors want to view online annual report information. Firms that post their reports only in PDF ignore the needs and preferences of most of their report users and put people off reading the report.

The eight companies meeting all the basic requirements deserve praise for making an effort to provide their online annual reports in formats that meet the varying needs of investors. Clearly, these companies are trying to communicate their financial information effectively on the Web.

Image-based reports are attractive to companies because they are quick, cheap to produce and perceived as a step up from PDF blobs. However, they are extremely cumbersome to use both online and offline as they cannot meet many basic usability requirements of investors. Companies should stop using image-based reports and vendors should stop selling them, especially because there are better options available that cost the same and can be produced in the same amount of time.

Online usability of financial disclosures is essential for investors to easily stay informed about their investments in public company securities, particularly as companies begin to replace printed reports with Web versions. Yet the vast majority of these mega-cap companies are failing to meet an acceptable usability standard.

There's only so much you can do of trying, finding yourself very close to getting a part and then not getting it.