The F-Shape Reading Pattern
Jacob Nielsen has released some more eye-tracking study results which back up the conclusion that visitors read websites with an “F-Shape Pattern“.
The results of the survey, emphasised by some fascinating images of the eye-tracking, seem fairly consistent across different website types, such as a corporate (”brochure”) website, an e-commerce site and a search engine results page (Google, in particular).
Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar. Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar. Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eyetracking heatmap. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F’s stem.
It’s not really surprising then, that if you compare this F-Shape reading pattern with Google’s heat map for optimising your Adsense ad positioning, there is a lot of overlap between the “hot” areas.
Are you optimising your ads to fit in with these patterns?
This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 2:28 pm and is filed under AdSense, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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