The Tendo View

I learned about eye-tracking technology in my newspaper days, when places like the Poynter Institute would strap headgear onto  hapless readers to record where their eyes moved on the printed page. The data was always useful, since it shows what layout approaches and print elements attract attention and for how long—and also how eyes move across and through a page of information.

This week I sat in on a webinar that outlined the latest eye-tracking data for the Web. I was interested in these five findings:

1. The F Pattern. Studies show that we read horizontally first, then track down the page, forming an “F” pattern. Also, time records of online viewing show that most people *scan* web pages—they don’t read them.
2. The Golden Triangle. When looking at search results, readers spend a lot of time in the top left corner of the screen. A Yahoo study found that putting thumbnail photos or videos next to search results improved click-through rates, and Google found that thumbnail images in search results help users more quickly decide whether the result will be useful. A picture really does say a thousand words…
3. Banner Blindness. Nielsen Norman Group (a usability consultancy founded by Jakob Nielsen, the guru of Web page usability) found through heat maps that users ignore Web ads. Plain text on a Web page gets read in the golden triangle and face photos draw eyeballs, but ads are completely ignored.
4. Talking Heads Bore. Studies show that online video of a talking person loses the user’s attention—users start looking at things in the background of the person in the video, or anywhere else except the person talking. The lesson? If you’re going to shoot video of a person talking, keep it really short (less than one minute) or use a photo instead. Sometimes video isn’t the right medium for your content. The most successful use of video on the Web, according to eye-tracking studies, is when you need to explain a concept or demonstrate some type of process or product.
5. Email Introductions Ignored. In e-newsletters, the studies found that most users ignore the introductory text. Sixty percent of users look at just the first two words and then skip down the page.

If you’re interested in reading more, check out these sites:

• http://usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines_book.pdf
• http://useit.com/eyetracking
• http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/methodology