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Eye tracking shapes marketing

The art of effective online and offline communication has benefited greatly from eye tracking research. The study of how the human eye registers and perceives visual communications has delivered some fascinating insights, especially on how we automatically filter the information. Research by Professor Siegfried Vogele of the Institute for Direct Marketing in Munich revealed that 100% of the individuals tested applied a common method of visual scanning. Vogele’s findings validated that a consumer’s focus could be affected by the placement of imagery and graphic elements. The results of this study have great implications for the design of effective marketing communication.

 

In my experience the process of commissioning new marketing materials through a creative agency seldom involves reference to valuable eye tracking research. How many designers out there are aware of Vogele’s research when they produce a design layout for a flyer, brochure, website or direct mail piece?

 

Some of the research findings:

In the case of a single page the human eye tracks top left to bottom right.

Diagram1
 
The hot spots where the eye will pay most attention are depicted by the orange circles.

Diagram5
 
With a double page the eye tracks top right to bottom right, via the centre of left.

Diagram2
 
The hot spots on a double page with a cold spot on the centre left.

Diagram1b
 
To avoid cold spots use an attention grabber on the far centre left, this drags the eye over more of the page.

Diagram3
 
Locating an attention grabber in the wrong area can risk creating dead space.

Diagram6
 
Attract the readers attention using the following results:
Circles are better than squares.

Diagram7
 
80% of people will look at a vertical shape before a horizontal.

Diagram8
 
A colour image is more effective than black and white.

Diagram12
 
A group image is more effective than an individual.

Diagram11
 
A larger image is more effective than a small image.

Diagram14
 
Eye contact is more effective than everything else.

Diagram13

 

When cut-through is paramount in today’s information overloaded society – key research such as this has a big role to play when creating design concepts and layout that have maximum impact. Stay tuned for my next post where I cover typography and copy styles and its importance in creating effective marketing materials.

 
Find out how we can add value to your marketing efforts – check out our website.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Communication Design, Content Best Practice, Marketing Research. 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.

4 Responses to “Eye tracking shapes marketing”

  1. November 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    Spyware Blocking says:

    I only want to say thank you! for all the great info found on your site, even helped me with my job recently :) keep it up!

  2. January 12th, 2010 at 3:09 am

    online stock trading guru says:

    There is obviously a lot to know about this. There are some good points here.

    I’m Out! :)

  3. January 13th, 2010 at 5:19 pm

    Isabella flower arrangement ideas says:

    I really liked this post. Can I re-post it to my site? Thank you in advance.

  4. January 13th, 2010 at 5:33 pm

    admin says:

    Sure, but I would like you to include the link to my website http://www.thebridgeeffect.co.nz as it appears in the bottom of the blog post.

    Regards
    James

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