Nielsen Norman GroupEvidence-Based User Experience Research, Training, and Consulting
Eyetracking research uses special equipement to detect exactly where people's eyes are focused when they look at a computer screen. This form of usability research makes it easier to understand what part of a design users are attracted to, and which parts they tend to overlook.
We've used eyetracking to analyze user behavior on many different types of interfaces, and some of our findings are described in the articles below.
For more information about eyetracking research:
Users pay close attention to photos and other images that contain relevant information but ignore fluffy pictures used to 'jazz up' Web pages.
Showing summaries of many articles is more likely to draw in users than providing full articles, which can quickly exhaust reader interest.
Slow page rendering today is typically caused by server delays or overly fancy page widgets, not by big images. Users still hate slow sites and don't hesitate telling us.
Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half. A conventional layout is thus more likely to make sites profitable.
Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold.