Task-oriented users don’t pay attention to images on web pages. This was one of findings reported by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice Coyne at Nielsen’s Usability Week conference in San Francisco on June 22nd where they presented the results of their first eyetracking study on website usability.
Eyetracking is a technique used to determine where a person is looking. By using a lightweight headset fitted with small cameras, it’s possible to track the movements of a user’s eyes and note what the pupils are doing while the user is looking at a particular feature.
Laura Ruel, a contributor to the E-Media weblog from Poynter Institute and an attendee at the conference, reported that: “According to [Nielsen and Coyne], images that do NOT attract attention share these traits:
- Generic/stock art
- Off-putting, cold, fake, too polished or “set up"
- Not related to content
- Look like advertisements
- Low contrast in terms of color—crisp
“Meanwhile, images that DO get attention share these traits:
- Related to page content
- Clearly composed and appropriately cropped
- Contain “approachable” people who are smiling, looking at the camera, not models
- Show areas of personal/private anatomy (Men tended to fixate on these areas more than women—really!)
- Items a user may want to buy
Although Jakob Nielsen can be a bit heavy-handed in what works and doesn’t on the web, these look like common-sense results. And no big surprise concerning men and private anatomy— some things in life are constant.
Other links about eyetracking and web usability:
Digital Storytelling Effects Lab
Results of Poynter’s Eyetrack III
