Eye Tracking Options

[cline]

The buzz lately about eye tracking has been really interesting. There is an eyetracking blog at http://blog.eyetools.net/ with some great stuff on it, in particular a study of a homepage redesign http://www.eyetools.com/casestudy/CaseStud...gn_20050303.pdf . See also some eyetracking studies on samples from the CSS Zen Garden.

Anybody care to give any theories about why this redesign did so much better? My thoughts:

* Much higher information density. The new page makes it look like the site is cram packed with info. The old design made it look like they were stretching their copy to fill the page.

* Narrower columns promote readability.

[AbleReach]

Cool info.

This caught my eye - halfway down the page under "Learn from Washington Post's Mistakes"
[url=http://blog.eyetools.net/eyetools_research/2005/02/eyetracking_the.html]
Bottom half of page — ineffective line-height spacing and lack of white-space reduce reading. Most of the content is being missed and there is no consistent guidance of eyes to section headings.[/url]

I like whitespace. However, in the old site it's arranged so that there's a sense of disorientation.
Cram-packed plus readable is an art of its own - perhaps cram packed is expected in a newspaper site, though eyes need some whitespace on the monitor.

The eyetracking studies are very interesting.

Musing...

I wonder if the top right is more of a hot spot for character sets that read from right to left??

I like right sided menus (if they're not too long) because they feel like they contain the site.


Elizabeth

[fisicx]

I to have a penchant for right navigation. But when the whole navigation issue was discussed some time ago I was out voted somewhat.

But I digress. Agree that the columns promote readability. The use of colour and font size assist in drawing the eye to the desired part of the screen. Note that the client 'wanted to draw attention to the left navigation'. This does not mean that left nav is the best option for all sites.

I also noted the bit that said: 'No one scrolled to look at the bottom 1/3 of the page.' I take this to mean that if it below the fold then it's not going to be seen.

And on the old site I think is was more a case of mis-aligned content rather than bad use of whitespace.

But I do like the eye-track system, very clever. I remember seeing a program on the telly years ago when they had one of these things on people in the street. The men's eyes never got below the chest of the ladies and the women's eyes were focused somewhat lower down....

[fisicx]

Reading the article about dead space on a page made me think about this forum (since it is the page in front of me).

I had a look at the whole thing and realized that I have never used the navigation at the top of the page. I noticed the St Patricks logo but that was it.

So the question is: what parts of the forum do you use and which part have you missed altogether?

Me, I link to the homepage, click on 'Last 72 hours' and select the topics that catch my eye. Nothing else on the page gets a look in.

[James]

I tend to use the same approach fisicx. More often than not, I don't get through the whole list of posts. In addition, if I'm feeling in a generous mood, I'll take a look at the list of posts with no replies, but sometimes there isn't much time for that.

[cre8pc]

We don't like the forums either

There are two new formats we're reviewing, and working out getting the funds to purchase, which will allow us to do more, including have more freedom to fix the UI.

We have a running list of the likes and dislikes suggestions from the community too, and are always happy to take suggestions and user feedback, in the hopes we can incorporate it and make the whole thing better, when we roll out the new forums.

[fisicx]

Not a critism of the site, just that it might be worth doing some sort of poll to see how people use the site.

The eyetrack articles demonstate that there are often whole chunks of the page that are not even looked at, if we do out own 'eyetrack' survey there may be some surprising results.

As an example, I had a PM but never knew about it because I never 'see' the top navigation - and I don't have a clue as to what is down the bottom of the page since I never go there.

[Tim]

Usually, I go straight to the back room forums and see what's happening there, then read all the posts in the forums I moderate. Then I'll check out the other forums I have an interest in, and if I have a lot of time I'll end up reading every single new post on the board. Sometimes I look at the list of topics without replies, as well.

Something I only noticed very recently when someone pointed it out was the back to top links. In over a year here, I'd never seen them before.

[AbleReach]

I go to the home page, then check the last bunch from what's unanswered, the last 72 hours, and my own posts. If I post, I want to both be responsive in the conversation and look for someone to give back to.

The same one-line set of links as a footer on every page would be a cool shortcut.

After reading to the bottom of thread's page, scrolling down a few inches would be handier than either hitting home or scrolling up to hit home. Plus, it'd create an easy pass by the list of links to monitors, and an opportunity to click on them.

They'd go nicely between the moderator site list and the phbb info, in the same pinky maroon as is found elsewhere. Color would help them stand out plus separate the phbb info from the moderator site links.


Elizabeth