Where do you look?
Web pages are viewed with different habits and attention points than traditional print media. In a recent study, EyeTrack (www.poynterextra.org) has uncovered fascinating patterns of how people typically will view and browse your website. This is but a small taste of the hundreds of insights you can gather at their website.
- User’s eyes most often fixated first in the upper left of the page. Typically hovering in that area before moving left to right. Only after viewing the top portion of the page for some time do user’s eyes explore further down the page.
- Dominant headlines most often draw the eye upon first entering the page. This is especially true if the headlines are in the upper left or similarly in the upper right. The image below shows the zones of importance based on the Eyetrack data.
- Oddly, the research has also found that smaller type encourages focused viewing – actually reading rather than scanning the words. Larger type promotes lighter scanning. Users also tended to view a headline that has a blurb attached when the headline was bold and the same size text as the blurb.
- The image below indicates how users view a given headline. Users tend to only view the first few words of a headline. They read on only if it catches their attention. Based on the research, a headline has less than a second to grab a person’s attention. That means those first words are incredibly important.
- Main navigation links were also found to be more successful when placed at the top of the page rather than the left or right sides.
This study has significant implications for how we design sites. Important elements do need to be placed in ways and in areas that catch people’s attention. I encourage you to explore the research in more detail at www.poynterextra.org – there is plenty more to learn.
-Doug DeVries
ww.Equine-Design.com
doug@equine-design.com
