Here's Looking at You, Kid. Eye-tracking Research and Your Website's Layout

No, this is not the path I took to my car after yesterday's Super Bowl party!

What it actually represents is a fairly simplistic model of the most common eye-movement pattern of a group of browsers viewing a web page. This research was compiled by the Eyetrack III team and released by The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools.

As the above diagram indicates, the Eyetrack III team found a common pattern: "...The eyes most often fixated first in the upper left of the page, then hovered in that area before going left to right. Only after perusing the top portion of the page for some time did their eyes explore further down the page..."

How can you use this information to develop or redevelop your web site? Here's a diagram that the Eyetrack folks derived from their preliminary analysis of the data...

The research team suggests that you match the location of the content on your site's pages to this map and rearrange it as necessary to place the most critical content in the higher priority zones. For more details ... much more ... on this fascinating study. Click through to the source listing below.

Source: The Best of Eyetrack III: What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes

Thanks for reading...

tom.gray@gemsolv.com
GeMSolv.com