Usability guru Jakob NIelsen has added his take on eye tracking and how people read a web page.
Nielsen's tests show a distinct F shaped pattern on all web pages. You can still see that Google golden triangle, but it does have the F shape to it.
He shows patterns on an About Us page, A Product Page and a SERP.
There are some clear indications for content strategy in this study, says NIelsen:
Users won't read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. Exhaustive reading is rare, especially when prospective customers are conducting their initial research to compile a shortlist of vendors. Yes, some people will read more, but most won't.
The first two paragraphs must state the most important information. There's some hope that users will actually read this material, though they'll probably read more of the first paragraph than the second.
Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior. They'll read the third word on a line much less often than the first two words
News websites have been with us for about a decade, and editors and designers still struggle with many unanswered questions: Is homepage layout effective?
