When browsing through websites, what is the first thing you look at? For me, probably either big headlines or the logo. Recently, eye tracking technology has had tremendous growth and can now be used to find out what exactly visitors look at when checking out a website. Perhaps designers can use this information to design webpages aimed at more visitors.
 


Eye tracking research shows that viewers look at a webpage in an F pattern. What in the world does this mean? Well, viewers start with reading the top line and then scan down the left side of the page a little ways and then continue reading again. This implies that the most important information should be in the first two paragraphs of your page. Also, in these paragraphs, the first few words are suggested to be “information-carrying” words. We don’t want to loose their attention too quickly! In fact, the BBC website reported that the brain makes a decision about a webpage in just 1/20 of a second.
 
So, what are some questions we can ask when designing a website?
 

  • What images fit the content best?
  • What is the focus of the page? (i.e. Where is the eye drawn to on the page?)
  • Is the focus on the correct section or item? If not, how can you change the focus? (e.g. change the color of a call-to action button to stand out from the page.)
  • Where is the eyeline on the page? (The eyeline is the line of sight that the eye follows on the page when scanning it quickly.)
  • What do other major industries, the competition, look like?

 
So maybe after finding out this information we can use it to make our designs more attractive to the user and get more visitors to the site.  If you would like more information, check out these helpful sites!
 
http://www.webprofits.com.au/blog/the-psychology-of-web-design/
 
http://theprodesigner.com/looking-at-the-psychology-web-design/
 
http://www.uxmag.com/technology/eye-tracking-and-web-usability-a-good-fit

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