The Eyes Have It

Drew McLellan Written by Drew McLellan
on May 1st, 2008 / 3 Comments / Print this

So, you want to create an effective website or blog. Do you know where to put the most critical data? How to design the page to optimize usability? You should know what eye tracking tells us.

Using a combination of complex hardware and data analysis, eye tracking maps a tester’s eye movements across a computer screen and assesses the amount of mental strain exerted at any given moment. It does this by recording scanning patterns of the eye, measuring pupil dilation (which correlates to cognitive effort) and taking over 250 observations of each eye per second.

Eye Tracking

  • A minuscule percentage of the subjects scrolled down to see what was being offered below the browser’s bottom border. Clearly, home pages are viewed as portals to get where the visitor wants to go…not lengthy destination pages.
  • Web visitors look to the upper middle of the home page first. Putting your navigation tools there allow them to get where they want to go fast. Over 20% of their attention was focused here.
  • Text heavy sites are more difficult to use. Most visitors only read the first two lines before moving on unless there’s white space and eye rests.
  • Clean, non-cluttered sites produced higher success rates. Users didn’t have to filter through as much unnecessary information.
  • Buttons/Icons with 1-3 word descriptions got the most use. Wordy button labels got the least.
  • Banner ads, on average, earned about 13% of the viewer’s time and interest.

Before you design your web page…keep in mind that just like any other visual medium, you have to have a flow pattern for your viewer’s eyes to follow. Don’t make them work to get the message.

About Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan gets branding and marketing and he desperately wants you to get it too.

So he tells stories, asks questions, and milks sacred cows. All to help clients discover their brand so they can create authentic love affairs with their customers.

Drew has not only survived 20 years in the advertising and marketing arena, he’s thrived in it. After working for several other agencies, including Young and Rubicam’s CMF&Z, Drew created McLellan Marketing Group in 1995.

Considered a national branding expert, Drew is a highly sought after speaker and has given about a zillion presentations at national conferences, key note addresses, training for his peers in the profession, college students and even his daughter’s eighth grade class.

Over the years, Drew has lent his expertise to clients like Nabisco, IAMS pet foods, Kraft Foods, Meredith Publishing, John Deere, Iowa Health System, Make-A-Wish, University of Central Florida, SkiDoo and a wide array of others.

When he’s not out preaching the good word of marketing & branding at work and on his blog Drew’s Marketing Minute, Drew spends time with his family and pondering why the Dodgers can’t seem to get back to the World Series.

Drew has a Master’s Degree from the University of Minnesota but alas, he cannot remember their fight song.

Shoot Drew an e-mail.

Subscribe to Drew's RSS feed here.

3 Comments to “The Eyes Have It”

  • AndreyM
    May 3rd, 2008
    2:43 am

    Thanks! Really wise thoughts! Especially the last one

  • j@CorePage
    May 3rd, 2008
    3:25 am

    Great lessons for designers and marketers alike.
    Long live white space! Death to clutter!

    _j
    community creator
    CorePage | Know more. Sell faster.

  • Hugh Duffy
    May 3rd, 2008
    3:40 am

    We work with accounting and cpa clients on website design. I am constantly keeping up with new research or comments on the topic of website design. Thanks for confirming some of what I know, educating me on what I don’t know, and reinforcing the basics.

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