Slashdot Mirror
Eye-tracking Study Shows How Users Scan Web Pages
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."
So that's why the big box is placed annoyingly and unavoidably right under the story post here at Slashdot.
BTW, I predict that widespread uptake of DVRs and the ability to fast forward through commercials will cause similar Innovations to occur.
Newscrawl style advertisements are coming.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I am not trolling here.
Most webpages all have a very similar layout so it just makes sense to begin looking for navigation bars on the left hand side. Why would you start elsewhere? Also most of the 'meat' of a page is in the middle, ie. ads are usually pushed off to the sides, so as far as starting from the middle goes, it just makes sense. People didn't come to see ads, they came to see content.
I was going to post a insightful reply, but got distracted by cool flashing ThinkGeek adverts. Ooooh, shiny!!!!
Seriously though, I was a bit nonplussed to be spoken to by Michael Jordan the other day whilst browsing the Yahoo site. Turns out it was a Flash banner ad for an underwear company, for which the purported greatest basketball player of all time was hawking. Yes, it caused me to glance up, but then it also caused the following sequence: a scowl, an epithet, an immediate drop in my opinion of MJ and the product, and a drop in the likelihood I will either buy the product or use Yahoo as a resource.
My fear is that as broadband becomes more commonplace, it's not going to mean faster browsing for everybody, it's going to be mean actual commercials on the web. To quote Snoopy: "Blech!"
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
I'm also worried that studies like this may be used to put advertising in different more annoying places in more annoying ways making it harder to block and ignore.
They've already got that. The main reason I block javascript-based ads was experience with an ad that placed itself squarely under the mouse pointer.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Now that a proper study has been done on the topic, I imagine that I should start moving menus over to the left-hand side of the page. It might be less efficient, but even crappy standards are still standards.
A quick, non-scientific time-and-motion study shows that it requires about 1/3 of a second and a hand motion of less than an inch to move the mouse pointer from the right-hand scroll bar to the left-hand menu at Slashdot. It takes several seconds (but less hand motion) to locate a menu in a non-standard location.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Although, banner ads appear on the top and bottom of print versions as well, at least they aren't in the middle.
"Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."
How can they call that "usability" news? /. editor said, this info can "may be useful for developers wanting to make their pages more usable" but that sure isn't the point of the article.
Sure, like the
Usability is about helping the user make USE of the website, isn't it? Well, it seems those pesky users are getting too smart for their own good (somehow they're jumping directly to the useful parts!) -- quick, let's figure out how to stop this nonsense!
Seriously, I know that online advertising plays an important role in funding freely available sites. But on a website that's purportedly all about usability, it blows my mind that they don't even mention the negative impact that an advertising method that *really* catches the users' eyes will have. Those ads are *detracting* from the usefulness of the site; the slashdot ad box right under the story is a little annoying, because you have to scroll past it to get to what you want (the fr0st p1st, of course). Designers need to keep the balance in mind (and it shouldn't be left out of the discussion).
Personally, when I have to use IE for some reason, I suddenly remember what it's like using the an internet saturated in popup windows and manically-flashing ads... and I can't get through it. I can't concentrate enough to read an article when there's something that simply won't stop flashing right in the middle of the text.
Sure it gets my attention. My eyes can't stop jumping back to that flashing thing. Sometimes I even go to the advertised website, and submit their domain registrant's info into all available forms. Funny, that probably shows up on their statistics as another big win.
Google's text links are okay (which is a good thing, since Mozilla won't block those for me!) -- I'll even click one if it looks relevant. That's the future of web advertising, I think.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Buy a pill. Pay more for ads and promotion than for the research and production. Can't you imagine a better way to know about a pill when you need one than being hammered with ads everywhere you look?
What about Googling for what you need? Is the era of pull-marketing going to replace pushers?
Why should I pay for all the BS and TV shows that have nothing to do with eating breakfast, when all I want is a decent product at decent cost? All that stuff is a privatized sales tax on my consumption, and IMO it's not being spent very well.
Oh well.
Most of it is checking what's obvious at the time, to make sure it's true, and find out the details.