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Posted by
Greg Edwards
on
March 10 2005
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Eyetracking on Blog Entries (Improving Blog Writing With Eye Tracking)
Eyetools Heatmap of people reading this blog
blog.eyetools.com
The "red" indicates my titles are read, but the "green" and "blue" shows that not so much of my content is read.
(How to interpret an Eyetools heatmap)
I'm a smart technical guy -- analysis and visualizations come easy to me -- and I'm even successful at public speaking, but trying to figure out HOW to write this weblog eats at me!
But I can tell you one thing... All of the blog entries earlier than this one sure aren't written the right way! I can't speak to the success of this entry you're reading right now -- you can leave a comment -- but I guarantee you I'm going to find out in next week's eyetracking test!
So, my writing can be optimized and here's why I know...
The lack of the color red on that eyetracking heatmap over there shows that people aren't hanging on my every word, despite the fact that they should be since this eyetracking stuff is fascinating and valuable (in my unbiased opinion).
But is it my writing style or lack of value that explains the non-reading?
Well, given that I believe that knowing whether people read what you write is valuable, I'm stuck with the realization that my writing must not be all that great...
Alas.
But I'm learning. I'm going to be a great writer yet! I'm going to iterate, try different things and test the effect until I get it right. Now, in retrospect, I wish I had gotten this feedback a long time ago in college -- maybe I could have gotten a better grade on all those essays.
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Comments
Well, I read all you entries - so they can not be that bad ;) The problem with the heatmap you show above probably are the people you "used" to generate it - they weren't really interested or fit enough in this technical world.
good observation Jan - do you factor this in to your studies Greg?
I do believe that the story told by the heatmap is accurate. Also, part of the problem is that I've seen so much data on other sites that I know that the heatmap of my site could be a LOT better...
If the content was better written, they would read more. And that is a major goal of our site. We have an interesting demographic which is different than most websites -- people find out about our site and what we do by reading about it elsewhere and **they have almost certainly never heard of eyetracking before that.** The people in the heatmap match that pretty well, and they are interested since they actually just participated in an eyetracking study -- wouldn't you be curious to read about the company that you just sat through a test with?
Also, the fact that they read the titles but not a lot of the content isn't really the whole story of why I think my writing needs to be optimized... it's fine if someone reads the title and decides based on it that they're not interested -- that's an effecient interaction that my content has enabled... but when they read the title, decide that they're interested enough to start reading the content, but then leave in the middle of a sentence, well, based on my business goals for the site, that says that they were interested to start it, but that the wording failed to satisfy. And THAT, I would like to optimize. After all, if the content was MORE interesting, they would read more. And my major goal is to let people (who have never heard about this stuff before) realize how amazingly powerful it is.
Have you accounted for other things besides writing style? Layout, etc., and all the other things that go into interface design? We tend to judge ourselves most harshly on those things we want most to succeed at.
My personal thoughts is that it's the actual titles themselves that could be improved because they do not seem to be pulling people into the content itself. Maybe the problem isn't with the content because it doesn't seem many people get even that far. Look at some newspaper and magazine headlines.
With improved entry titles, you might want to consider bumping up the Recent Posts section in the navigation column, might pull them to the content further.
That's a good point about the titles... I'll need to start trying to recognize good examples to learn from. Pointers are always welcome!
I have been doing my own analysis of web sites and blogs while developing my first, but very professional, commercial website and blog. I find this blog to be fascinating, and the eyetracking even more so. I was literally making note of where I looked on your blog as I first began reading. My focus followed the example of your scan closely, except that I read the posts.
I have found nothing negative in your writing style, but I almost skipped your graphics. They are located where most companies place their free adverising, which I always skip. As an example: If I had not read this line- (* This is an old E*Trade website -- we ran this test in January 2001. Since then, E*Trade has become a client, and is very proactive in working to improve the experience for their customers.) and noticed the asterisk, I would not have LOOKED for the ETrade graphic you posted. Most importantly, as you stated, I came to this blog from another link. Even though I came looking for you and the information you provide, I almost missed what I was looking for.
I have learned that most readers focus down the middle of the page, or where the content is located, and skip the rest. And this is where I find your eye tracking to be valuable. To find the rest of the hot spots on a page.
I have to conclude that your premise, that your writing stinks, is wrong. But thank you for the rest of the information. ;-)
Frank, good point about the images on the article level pages. I've only been collecting eyetracking data on the top main blog page, but not at the article level. I'll need to put some thought into that. THANKS!
i notice you use a small font in this article for a sentence or two - is this something you're going to track the success of?
Have you done any tracking of the use of bold/italics/underline or other formatting etc in the middle of posts/articles?
Darren, you BET I'm going to track the success of that! For right now it'll be at a higher level, looking at the over-all writing style and less at the specific use of a small font to highlight or "de-highlight" content. I'm really curious to see if my change in writing style will be liked by more people (it's more personal, which is actually more fun for me to write than the earlier stuff which I wrote with a more detached "professional" tone).
Though, you're asking a bigger question: how does selective bolding / italics / underline in the middle of paragraphs affect reading. That's a good question to be asking. My thoughts on that aren't solid enough that I'd feel comfortable putting it out there yet. I don't want to put out my opinion, and would instead rather put out real, solid data. So, stay tuned...
I don't think your analysis is right. It is inevitable that more people are going to read the headline than the last paragraph.
It is also inevitable that any single blog entry is not going to be of interest to all the people who glance at the heading or the first line.
So your heat map is always likely to have red at the top and darker colours at the bottom. After all most entries of this type are written in an inverse pyramid with the vital info at the beginning.
Have you ever done a heat map on a blog that shows a different pattern? Perhaps with red at the bottom? It just isn't going to happen.
People who read blogs tend to read a lot of them. Of course they scan, the skip, then they move on. As they seem to have done with yours.
Personally I think eyetools' heatmaps are great and only wish I had the money to get them done for my websites. Perhaps in the future.