Eye tracking rules

[duncan drennan]

Seth Godin has an interesting summary of some things learnt from eye tracking. Here are two that I found interesting,

* Text ads were viewed mostly intently of all types tested.
* Fancy formatting and fonts are ignored

Get the full list on Seth Godin's blog (which links through to this post)

[Chatmaster]

This is a nice summary of the eyetrack report. There are a few points that I would like to comment on though in terms of web advertising and the use of the eyetrack report.

The top left of a page mainly contain the company logo on the majority of sites. It tells people where they are and how familiar the brand is. Therefore the top left of a webpage should be used for your corporate identity. Because eyetrack says it is most viewed area of the page, please do not think that is the hot spot for adverts.

Western people read from left to right therefore the eyetrack report is a little bit biased and this should be taken in consideration.

Rich media is far more successful when it comes to advertising, IF DONE RIGHT! Text certainly beats other types of ads, once again if applied correctly.

Allot can be said for the eyetrack report and it i certainly worth the read, but it is very important to note that the way advertising is designed user behavior can be influenced. Do not look at the report as a alpha and omega as there is much more variables at play when it comes to advertising. The target market will certainly also influence the user behaviour. For example, If you are looking for videos or images, text will be mostly ignored. If you are looking for information, images will be mostly ignored. The web consist out of both these people and you need to firstly determine what your user will be looking for before planning an ad campaign. A further important point is, if you are planning on a ad campaign, analyze the specific site on which you will advertise obtain user demographics for the site and then decide what format of advertising you will utilize on the specific site, that is targeted at the needs of the visitors that frequent that site. Then track your results for at least a month to obtain the necessary data to take informed decisions based on the specific site's visitor behavior.

Do not just blindly follow the eyetrack report, you might be surprised at how many variables there are that can change user behavior.

[Dave A]

Very interesting. Thanks for the links.

I've been tracking each advert zone on this site for performance and from that I have to endorse Chatmaster's comment

Do not look at the report as a alpha and omega as there is much more variables at play when it comes to advertising.

[Ryss]

Very good point and in fact that can be extended to apply to anything one reads on the internet. Multiply opinions should be obtained and lots of research should be done before taking a decision.