Advanced Techniques for Web Success Part II

Eye Tracking and Heat Mapping

A great deal of study has gone into the physiological response of an observing set of eyes as it scans a website. The result is that areas where eyes linger longer become important spots to optimize in your website's design. The longer the gaze, the deeper your message will impact the viewer. By analyzing the gaze plot pattern, heat maps can then be generated showing areas of fixation and the gaze time for each hot spot.

F-Shaped Patterns

According to a study by Jakob Nielsen, “eye tracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe.” His report explains that speed is the reason for the F-shaped pattern as visitors come to a website and quickly scan it for details. As a result, he identifies the following implications for web design.

• Users don't read everything—most of the time they are simply scanning for important points.

• Important information should be stated up front—the first two paragraphs will be looked at more than others.

• Making use of headings, subheadings, and bullet points is critical—the eyes are naturally drawn to them.

Subconscious Decisions

In a blog article from Google, one can easily see the F-shaped pattern in the heat map shown in Google's findings from an eye-tracking study. Google determined that people start from the top of the screen and work their way down when surveying search results, with most of their time spent in the top quarter of the page. They also determined that “people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously.”

Designing your content to match the F-shaped pattern is critical to the success of your site.

Hit Web Design offers tools as well to facilitate testing of your website's effectiveness. For additional information contact us at Hit Web Design or call 866-211-0743.