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Users read the web in an “F” shaped pattern - Jakob Nielsen
April 17, 2006 | Posted by: Marty
Although some of us may not like Mr. Nielsen’s opinion on certain topics — this research he has presented is very interesting and definitely impacts the way we weigh importance on “big-banana” areas of our sites.
F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
Tags for this post:
information design ui jakob nielson eyetracking
Categorized in: Design
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Comments
by Nicholas
Good link.
IMO, this has more impact on use/placement of content headings/sub-headings and content layout in general than the whole “big banana” theory…
So I think I was wrong, maybe this should have been tagged “information design” instead of IA. :)
by Nicholas
I don’t like Jakob’s opinions on some things, but I do like his fancy dance steps.
by Lee
First, very cool technology that tracks the eye movement and color codes it all. And yep it’s totally about scanning headlines. If you
Supports the USA Today theory that users read headlines first. What would be interesting is to see the actual eye pattern to see if they scanned the headlines, then went back and read teh underlining text.
And as far s the fancy dance - ok, that’s really scary.
by Nicholas
Have look through the findings of Eyetrack III to get tons of detail on how people actually read many different types of web pages.
by Christine
I’m fascinated by the eye tracking as well (liked the part where I got to squint my eyes…). I personally find I read a web page from THE BOTTOM UP. Seriously. Faster to get to the bottom first and see what is worthy on the skim upwards - that way I know how much I am committed to read.