Some of the findings from Nielsen Norman Group's recent usability studies using eye tracking technology:
The above example is from a website's "About Us" pages. The heatmap clearly shows users' tendency to read in an "F" pattern, and their focus on information that's presented in bulleted lists. In this case, there's also a small amount of attention to the "see also" area, but no viewing of the promotions in the rightmost column. (See our separate research project for detailed guidelines for the design of "About Us" areas of corporate websites.)
Our full-day seminar on Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability includes many detailed results of this project, often shown as slow-motion gaze replay videos. The seminar is available for in-house presentation at your company ($9,000+travel). If interested, contact
Our eyetracking research included a substantial component run by Amy Schade, who studied people's use of email newsletters. We got much help from our research assistants: Sukeshini A. Grandhi (Suki), Tatyana S. Nikolayeva, David Shulman, and John Scanlan.
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Pre-order our upcoming book about these studies:
- from Amazon.com
Press CoverageUSA Today'Sneak Peek' Into Net Surfers' Brains
Poynter Institute
MediaPost
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