Eye-tracking Study Shows How Users Scan Web Pages

Posted by timothy on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @10:56AM from the they-look-for-fleshtones dept.

apatrick writes "An article in UsabilityNews.com describes an experiment where Internet users' eyes were tracked while they searched for information on WWW pages from three well-known newspapers. The findings indicated that people learn very quickly where ads are usually placed on web pages, and then they no longer look there. The results also show that users look to the left hand side for navigation menus, and they scan from the middle of the page outward. Such results may be useful for developers wanting to make their pages more usable, or to attract the users' attention."

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How to disable flash in IE by Goyuix · 2003-12-17 11:18 · Score: 3, Informative

While not entirely on-topic, I use this little tidbit to disable flash while I am surfing, only flipping it back on when I absolutely need to (like for watching the latest Strong Bad Email)

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-44455354000 0}

Disable Flash:
"Compatibility Flags" = 0x400

Enable:
"Compatibility Flags" = 0x0

Enjoy your somewhat more advertising free world.