Web Eye Tracking and improved website performance
What is Web Eye Tracking?
Eye-tracking studies are a type of usability test where user gaze concentrations are recorded in thermal-like ‘heat zone maps’ or reading flow is recorded in ‘point to point’ sequence maps.
Web Eye Tracking offers cutting edge usability studies that tell you where users look, what they pay attention to, and what they miss.
So what does Web Eye Tracking tells us about website usability?
Users spend a large amount of time initially looking at the top left of the page and upper portion of the page before moving down and towards the right.
Normal initial eye movement around the page focuses on the upper left portion of the screen.
Ads perform better in the left hand column in comparison to the right column of a page.
Smaller type encourages a more focused viewing behavior.
Larger type promotes lighter, less focused scanning.
Dominant headlines most often draw the eye first upon entering a page- especially the upper left portion of a page.
Users will only look at a sub headline if they find it engaging.
Navigation placed at the top of a homepage performs best.
People’s eyes typically scan lower portions of a page seeking something that will grab their attention.
Shorter paragraphs performed much better than longer ones.
The standard one-column format performed better in terms of number of eye fixations.
Ads in the top left portions of a homepage received the most eye fixations.
Clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixations on homepages.
See a movie showing the results of a Web Eye Tracking study on some of the pages of Navega Bem – Web Design here.