Re: eye movement and web page layout

["Chuck Martin" <cm -at- writeforyou -dot- com>]

Sue,

I love listening to Jared speak and find a lot of what he says very useful.
However I also cast a bit of a vary eye only because a former instructor of
mine suggessted that Jared's methods were/are not as "rigorous" as he
expected, therefore he did not always trust fully the conclusions.

That said, my impression of Jared's (and UIE's) research is that it is less
focused on what Jim's looking for and more on whether user's get results
with a particular design. That user-results-driven testing can be more
useful in some ways than academic theories.

As I recall, some of Jakob Neilsen's research (useit.com) as well as what
I've seen in other places (please don't ask me to remember them, especially
on a Saturday) suggest that users' eyes are drawn to links and graphics. As
far as scanning direction goes, I don't think it's any different than other
media.

-- 
--
Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net      www.writeforyou.com

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day
may come when the courage of Men fail,  when we forsake our friends and
break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! This day, we fight!"
                    - Aragorn

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you."
                    - Gandalf

"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher5 -at- cox -dot- net> wrote in message
news:232916 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
>
> Have you been to User Interface Engineering (uie.com)?
> It sounds like the stuff that Jared Spool and his group
> were doing in the mid-90s.
>
> You might even try emailing them and asking. I haven't
> contacted them in a while, but they were always very
> responsive (and they do good research).
> HTH!
> -Sue Gallagher
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bounce-techwr-l-100838 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
> I've been googling away for a while, trying to find any studies that
> demonstrate how the eye moves around a Web page when the page first loads.
> I have some vague memory of a study showing that most "western people" (or
> whatever) start in the top left corner, moves across the top of the page,
> down the right side, and end up somewhere in the middle. I have another
> vague memory telling me that the first thing the eye moves to is images,
> rather than text...
>



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