Site Scan Pattern Study Shows Interesting Results

As a web usability expert I am always researching ways to better understand user behavior on the Internet. How can the design and placement of information on a page influence a user's decision to either disregard the information presented, or spike user interest to increase conversion potential? After all, conversion leads to opportunities of sales and/or returned visitors. With advances in technology, we are gaining valuable insight into the usability of websites.

Tips & Tricks

Heat Maps

Heat maps track the users eyes as they look at the monitor and provide valuable feedback for research. Eye Tools, Inc. and Poynter Research conducted a study in San Fransisco, California, tracking over 40 users as the reviewed news websites for one hour and collected valuable data. Below are the results of the study. Please note: It is a mix of "findings" based on controlled variables, and "observations" where testing was not as tightly controlled. The researchers went "wide," not "deep" -- covering a lot of ground in terms of website design and multimedia factors.

Headlines

Dominant headlines most often draw the eye first upon entering the page -- especially when they are in the upper left, and most often (but not always) when in the upper right. Photographs, contrary to what you might expect (and contrary to findings of 1990 Poynter eyetracking research on print newspapers), aren't typically the entry point to a homepage.

Type Size

Smaller type encourages focused viewing behavior (that is, reading the words), while larger type promotes lighter scanning. In general, the testing found that people spent more time focused on small type than large type. Larger type resulted in more scanning of the page -- fewer words overall were fixated on -- as people looked around for words or phrases that captured their attention. Eyetrack III test participants tended to view both the headline and blurb when the headline was bold and the same size as blurb text and immediately preceded the blurb on the same line. Researchers believe that it is the contrast in type size that accounts for this behavior, as well as the type size itself. When a headline is larger than its accompanying blurb text, it's perceived as the important element of the headline-blurb block -- so people appear to decide that viewing the headline is sufficient and they skip the blurb.

Headlines

Underlined headlines discouraged testers from viewing blurbs on the homepage. Navigation placed at the top of a homepage performed best -- that is, it was seen by the highest percentage of test subjects and looked at for the longest duration. In a survey of 25 top news sites, they found 11 that used top position navigation. The other 14 used left navigation. Seven of the 25 used left and top navigation elements. None of the 25 sites surveyed used right side navigation. It's rare, but you can find right navigation in the news website world.

Advertisements

Ads in the top and left portions of a homepage received the most eye fixations. Right side ads didn't do as well, and ads at the bottom of the page were seen, typically, by only a small percentage of people. Text ads were viewed most intently, of all the types tested. They also learned that the bigger the image, the more time people took to look at it. Though this information is from the result of tests ran on news websites, information can be applied to marketing websites as well. Studies like these will continue to help us understand user behavior and provide valuable insight into how we can develop user-friendly websites that ultimately lead to better conversion percentages. With continued research and advanced visitor statistics tracking systems like the LevelTen HitCounter, we will be able to further increase conversion for the sites we build and hopefully provide a better user experience. 

What techniques do you use for the best UX? Comment below with your suggestions.