There is a great article on webpronews about recent research done by a company called eyetrack - about what people see and where they look on an average web page which IMHO has some very valid points and maybe a bit of an eye opener for some (although the sample is small) The article is here http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=29719 The heatmap is here http://www.poynter.org/content/resource_popup_view.asp?id=26192 The full result pdf is here http://www.poynter.org/resource/public/20040908_104729_11889.pdf Let's hear what you think M
Interesting find expat. I read a brief report about it some months back but never actually saw the heatmap. The report I read was geared toward ad placement, saying that ads had to be forced into the users view and advocated pop-ups... I remember reading Bunnyfoot's white paper on pop-ups about the same time.
That is quite interesting and I noticed I do tend to look at all the same "hotspots". I wonder why that is? Still interesting nonetheless.
well western world reads from left to right and top down so an initial concentration on the top left quadrant seems logical. I found two points of high interest. 1.Text ads seem to outperform other ad forms.... great just yesterday decided to not allow pic / banner ads on our sites 2.headline font size relation to undelying blurb may or may not determine if the blurb is actually read with the implication of teaser words in the beginning.... That one will make me rethink a couple of layouts we run... It's a small sample and geared towards news sites and ads but a lot IMHO is general. M
I've only quickly scanned the article but did think straight away that perhaps the WebProWorld webmaster should read the article and then they mightn't use such a small font. I scanned around looking for a link to change the font size and couldn't find it. Just as I was about the leave and come and write this post I saw it up the top in the left hand corner. Now I'm not an old fart but forums aren't something I usually print out and some long posts such as that one are easier to read in a size closer to what is here at DP. I guess this means that I don't spend a lot of time looking at this part of a site because it is usually filled with the logo or site name. The only time I really look there is if I can't find a "Home" link and there is usually one there. This is a quick way to annoy me. It's like reading a book and seeing an ad in the middle of the page. As with popups though, everyone says they are annoyed by them but they work.
I would love to see a heatmap for other types of pages - it's a great study and very worthwhile. I hope that more webmasters adopt the language of visualization and take these lessons to heart.
Not too embarrassed, it's just not appropriate, or is it? I don't want a red reputation, but I think you know where I am going with it.
They do these testing TV ads, to see where people look. It's a crack up watching a commercial with the eye indicator on it. If there are boobs - the eyes go there... etc. never where the advertiser probably hopes.