The "red" indicates my titles are read, but the "green" and "blue" shows that not so much of my content is read.

(How to interpret an Eyetools heatmap)

I’m a smart technical guy — analysis and visualizations come easy to me — and I’m even successful at public speaking, but trying to figure out HOW to write this weblog eats at me!

But I can tell you one thing… All of the blog entries earlier than this one sure aren’t written the right way! I can’t speak to the success of this entry you’re reading right now — you can leave a comment — but I guarrantee you I’m going to find out in next week’s eyetracking test!

So, my writing can be optimized and here’s why I know…

The lack of the color red on that eyetracking heatmap over there shows that people aren’t hanging on my every word, despite the fact that they should be since this eyetracking stuff is fascinating and valuable (in my unbiased opinion).

But is it my writing style or lack of value that explains the non-reading?

Well, given that I believe that knowing whether people read what you write is valuable, I’m stuck with the realization that my writing must not be all that great…

Alas.

But I’m learning. I’m going to be a great writer yet! I’m going to iterate, try different things and test the effect until I get it right. Now, in retrospect, I wish I had gotten this feedback a long time ago in college — maybe I could have gotten a better grade on all those essays.

Design decisions affect what people read. The CSS Zen Garden always has the same content but different visual treatments — and you can see how this affects reading.

With new, advanced, “eye tracking” capabilities and tools for measuring groups of viewers, it all becomes clear.

New: Vote for the next design to be eyetracked by Eyetools

Same content, different visual treatments
Continue reading →

Note: This entry is not an exhaustive report, instead it’s a quick sample of things! Despite that, this entry is still too long by most weblog standards â€â€? there’s always so much to be said about the data… alas.

Learn from Washington Post’s successes

• Main content area â€â€? good readable design. It is heavily viewed and read (more so than some other news sites). Good use of line-spacing and white-space. People even scroll. Job well done!

Learn from Washington Post’s mistakes

• Bottom half of page â€â€? 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.

  Opportunities to communicate value to visitors is greatly reduced in this area. We’ve seen other websites do a better job.

Advertising

The ads changed for each person, so numbers are averaged and are not tied to specific creatives. The numbers reported are pretty typical, in our experience, for sites of this kind. It’s worth noting that we measure what is happening with advertising and photos with statistics rather than relying on the heatmap (email me if you want to know why, and maybe I’ll write-up an entry about it).

Clearly there is a more we could say about advertising effectiveness, but not today � the main point of this entry is about design.

A final note about this type of research

Getting this type of data isn’t difficult or expensive. Giving direct visual eyetracking feedback to designers is a great thing because it completes the creative design loop â€â€? designers already utilize visual design, fonts, background colors, and spacing with the intention of effectively guiding visitors’ eyes, and eyetracking data introduces feedback into that system.