Where people look online

Recent eyetracker research reveals that users of news websites look at the headlines first, rather than the images.

The study, called Eyetrack III, from The Poynter Institute in the US, looks at how people’s eyes move, focus and skip while reading news websites.

It found that people zoomed in on headlines first, although they tended to read only the first few words of the headline. Similarly, they scanned down the left-hand menu of headlines until something prompted them to read on.

This and other findings from the research have important implications for those involved in creating online content. That people are attracted by headlines first online (as opposed to in print, where photos are generally viewed first, according to a 1990 study from the same institute) highlights the importance of gripping online readers in the first few words. The research also found that people devote less than an average of one second to scanning a headline, so your words need to captivate visitors almost instantly.

Short and snappy headlines are clearly the order of the day when it comes to attracting and – more importantly – keeping website visitors. There are implications for email writing too. Subject lines should be fairly short and as self-explanatory as possible, with the key words first.

Text: bigger is not always better

Surprisingly the study found that smaller fonts encouraged people to focus and read content, rather than just scan it. This finding seems a little counter-intuitive, but suggests that if you want people to read closely, making the text size smaller may be a good idea.

Obviously, this could be taken too far: try not to induce squinting, but choosing a small(ish) font may encourage your visitors to read more closely. People tended to just scan those news websites using large fonts.

Paragraphs, too, should err on the side of short. The research found that people focused on shorter paragraphs twice as often as they did on long ones.

Images: faces and click-throughs

Although they weren’t the first thing the study participants looked at, pictures did tend eventually to draw the eye. And the bigger the image, the more attention it got. Seventy per cent viewed an average size photo, compared with a postage stamp sized picture, which caught the eye of only ten per cent. Pictures of ‘clean, clear’ faces were the biggest draw (though not on stamps, presumably).

Many of the test subjects tried to click on photos – even though it got them nowhere. Picture links that lead somewhere useful could be a good way to cash in on this apparent reflex. And it’s an area that is often underutilised or overlooked when creating online content.

Be careful with ‘visual breaks’

Those participating in the study often didn’t read blurbs beneath an underlined headline, and researchers found a similar phenomenon with adverts. Adverts were read less frequently if they were separated from editorial content and preceded by white space or a rule. So use lines, rules and other ‘visual breaks’ with care.

Eyetracking and the future

The process of eyetracking, which – you’ve guessed it – tracks and records a person’s eye movements while they are reading, has advanced greatly in the last 20 years. Where subjects once had to wear cumbersome (and, frankly, unflattering) camera headgear while under observation, now the technology consists of a small video camera, which is placed under the computer monitor being viewed. From there it locks onto and records the subject’s gaze, making for a more natural experience and therefore providing more realistic results.

The researchers themselves point out that research in this area is far from exhaustive (test subject groups tend to be quite small and variables are not always tightly controlled), but they’d like to see it continue.

‘We hope that Eyetrack III is not seen as an end in itself, but rather as a beginning of a wave of eyetracking research that will benefit the news industry,’ say Steve Outing and Laura Ruel, the study’s project managers.

And with over 1.73 billion people currently logging on worldwide and the paperless office potentially just around the corner, it looks like this area of research is definitely something we should all keep an eye on.

Emphasis runs a one-day course, called Writing web content with clout, which explores the specific skills required to write compelling web copy. Call us on +44 (0)1273 732 888 or email us to find out more.

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Author: Catie Holdridge

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Catie joined Emphasis with an English literature and creative writing degree and a keen interest in what makes language work. Having researched, written, commissioned and edited dozens of articles for the Emphasis blog, she now knows more about the intricacies of effective professional writing than she ever thought possible.

She produced and co-wrote our online training programme, The Complete Business Writer, and these days oversees all the Emphasis marketing efforts. And she keeps office repartee at a suitably literary level.