What's more important to your web site: pictures or text?If you have an ecommerce web site, you need
answer to that question. Your profits depend on it.
Over years, we've heard a lot of opinions on this topic. Some webmasters formed opinions through studying log files and conducting online surveys. Others relied on personal preference.
However, thanks to Stanford University and Poynter Institute, we now have some concrete research to use in our quest to design most effective sites. The Stanford Poynter Project sheds light on how site visitors spend their time.
Some will find results surprizing. Others will have their opinions confirmed. The four-year study demonstrated that our online reading patterns are precise opposite of our reading patterns when we read newspapers or magazines.
When we read print newspapers, we read at breakfast table, in coffee shop or on subway. We browse -- a headline here, a picture there. We look at pictures first, then read text if it interests us. People who layout print publications know this, and they design accordingly.
Many concluded that same patterns would apply on web. But it's not so. We do exact opposite.
Surfing isn't a casual activity that we do comfortably while waiting for bus. It's something we do sitting in a chair staring at a monitor that isn't friendly to eyes. Moreover, we're likely to be distracted by telephone calls, incoming email and co-workers in next cubicle.
Online, we need to get information as quickly as possible. We head straight for text. The study found that surfers look first at article text (92% of time) and briefs (82% of time), and thirdly at photos. We read 70% of article, as compared to 30% we're likely to read from a magazine or newspaper. Then, when we're finished with text, about 22% of us glance at web site's pictures.
Banner ads and photographs attract more attention than artwork.
Oddly, study also showed that although only 22% of site visitors glance at pictures, 45% check out banner ads for approximately one and one quarter second.
Other miscellaneous findings from study:
1. Sports readers read more content than any other type of reader. Males and females read sports in equal numbers, but 11% of males read heavily compared to 0% of females. 2. Thirty-year olds read more local content than twenty year olds or sixty year olds. 3. Females read more local content than males. 4. Twenty-year olds read more science and sports than other age groups. 5. When reading online, we read serially. That is, we jump back and forth among sites, returning to ones that interest us.
