Your Site Through Users' Eyes

Via WaSP came an interesting link about a study of how people perceive and interact with web sites. Researchers at Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media, and Eyetools Inc. took 46 internet users and analyzed their browsing patterns and eye movements as they were presented with various site designs. The results of this research have a great educational value to anyone involved with web development. Can user testing get any better than seeing everything through users' eyes?

The research conducted by The Poynter Institute was dubbed Eyetrack III (see Eyetrack III FAQ). To save you time navigating through the multitude of links on their site I'll list articles I found the most interesting:

1. Overview: What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes.
2. Using Headline & Blurbs addresses a number of interesting questions, such as,
   • Do headlines and blurbs help visitors find engaging content?
   • Do visitors pay attention to blurbs and how do they read them?
3. Article-Level Page Design: What Matters Inside?
   • Do introductory paragraphs and blurbs draw people in to read further?
   • What are the chances they will read articles to the end?
   • What's the optimal length of a paragraph?
   • How many columns should content be arranged?
4. Navigation Placement:
   • What's the best place to put navigation?
   • Which type of navigation do people prefer?

There's much more covered by the study than this. You can read a complete, 340-page report in all findings (PDF).