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Robert's Web tip of the day: Use eye-tracking
Published: July 16, 2008 at 4:26 PM (MST)
A lousy Web design can keep readers from finding the great content on your site. Would you read a site that featured pink text on a purple background? Or that buried information in tiny type below a slew of blinking ads? Heck, no.
Yet even subtle design mistakes can cost you readers... and money. I long ago lost count of the number of page layouts I've used on my various websites over the years. But I do remember how subtle changes between those layouts dramatically changed click-throughs, site traffic and advertising income. Fortunately, you do not need to spend a decade messing around with page designs, as I have, in order to create a winning site. Just take a look at some of the research that's been done on how readers "see" websites. I'd start with Google's impressive eye-tracking research. Google recorded where volunteers looked on computer screens that were displaying various webpage designs. It used that data to create "heat maps" which showed the most-viewed parts of the screen for those designs. Based on that research, Google created three maps that suggest the most visible locations to place banner ads in a three column website layout, in a discussion forum and on blogs. My experience? When I flopped the ads from the right side of my pages to the left, based on Google's suggestions, I saw an immediate 50 percent increase in ad revenue. Web design guru Jakob Nielsen looked at other eye-tracking research to describe an F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. In short, readers scan across the page at its top, then down a bit, over some more, then straight down the side, like a letter "F." They're scanning for the information that interests them, so if you have it, you'd better provide it somewhere in that "F." Otherwise, readers are likely to miss it in the jumble of other information on your page. These resources provide excellent starting points for anyone, including print journalism refugees, wanting to launch a popular and profitable news website. I'd be happy to talk with any journalist or Web publisher about effective and usable Web designs. Feel free to ask your question in the comments. Robert Niles also can be found at http://www.themeparkinsider.com This journal entry has been archived and is no longer accepting comments. |
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From Patrick Slavenburg on July 21, 2008 at 6:07 AM
The F-shapes are quite known... but I think a lot may have changed in the last 2-3 years. If you look at social networks like Facebook: the amount of information on a page is enormous. That must have an impact in how people absorb that.Second: the F on search results I find a bit misleading since it may only give half the story. A lot of people cannot find in search what they are looking for. So what do they do, they click on Back and scroll further down. So the *initial* response may be an F with focus on the top 2, but what happens after that ? It will widely differ by topic as well. If I look for information and all I can find are e-commerce sites, I'll scroll down immediately.
I wonder how much all that really changes behavior. The "F" may still be valid, but the question is: "what does it mean" ?