Dana VanDen Heuvel: Original Research on Online Ad Placement

December 8, 2003

Original Research on Online Ad Placement

Digital Bulletin: Move Online Ads Around For Effectiveness, Says Study

The folks at Eyetracking and The Usability Company have done some "original research" which states, in essence:

Eyetracking offers information that cannot possibly be obtained by traditional usability testing and market research methodologies. The human brain processes visual information very quickly. When looking at a web page we make subconscious decisions as to the importance of the information viewed within microseconds. If an advert is perceived to be sufficiently interesting then fixations are considerably longer.

While the research may be primary, and somewhat original, the conclusions drawn are neither.

Web site design should be considered less of an art and more of a science. I think we're there already. I'm a huge fan of breakthrough creative, but the site still has to perform, and you have to test, test, test to attain peak performance.

It would certainly be more effective to alter the positioning of advertising from page to page. Sure, but there's something to be said about delivering content with respect for the user's time and intelligence. Alteration without altercation is what I say.

My bitching aside, the diagrams the Eyetracking produced for this piece are kick-ass.

The full version of the report, which includes illustrations and data analysis, is available at theusability.com website.