Contrary to common opinion, David Ogilvy didn’t have a preference for long copy.

What he had was an overwhelming bias towards anything that had been proven to work (which included long copy).  Ogilvy’s real, professed preferences were for consumer testing, research-driven techniques, and performance-based advertising in the truest sense of the term.

Based on those things, the conclusion he came to was that messaging and relevance had to have highest priority. Everything else – creativity, design, layout – should be subordinated to the end goal of conveying a salient message in as persuasive a manner as possible. In print, this took the form of what has come to be known as “The Ogilvy Layout.”

Understanding Ogilvy’s Layout and Why it Still Works

There are three main parts to the Ogilvy Layout, with a corresponding and crucial quality for each element:

1. The picture, which should have “story appeal”
2. The headline, which should tie into the “story appeal” of the picture
3. And the body copy, which most be placed in the right relationship to both the picture and the headline as to anticipate the reader’s visual preferences and enhance readability.

I’ve dealt with Story Appeal in previous posts, but let’s talk about headlines before diving into why Ogilvy’s favorite arrangement continues to stand the test of time.

What I’ve Noticed About Ogilvy’s Headlines

In his book, Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy writes about the importance of captions no less than 4 times, urging the reader to include captions underneath all of their photographs each and ever time.  According to the research Ogilvy cites, 4 times as many readers read captions as body copy and 10 times as many people read headlines as body copy.

So while it may seem obvious that the headline and the main picture (or “hero shot” in today’s lingo) should be related, it also seems that you can grab even more reader-grabbing power for your headlines if you make use of some of the compelling “what’s this picture all about” draw of captions.  Here’s a perfect example of this:

Pretty difficult not to read a bit more about that story, isn’t it?

Let’s Talk Layout and Arrangement

Here’s the thing: because of his attention to research, Ogilvy knew what many online copywriters are still learning:

**People scan and skim first and read second

and they only read IF their scan turns up something worthwhile.**

Now, in magazines, which are mostly read as a diversion, the first thing to get scanned are pictures.  We are visual creatures and pictures typically convey a lot of information (and emotion) fast, so a strong visual is almost always going to be the first thing the eye fixes on when the reader is engaging in general browsing for interest.  Please note, though, that this scanning order changes for task oriented individuals interacting with a website.  People scanning a web page redefine “worthwhile” by relevance to their task, and therefore focus on the headlines first.

Getting back to magazine ads, if the picture is intriguing, the next thing a person will scan is the headline and possibly the caption.  After that, and only after that, the person in question will skim (or read) the body copy.

For emphasis, this is THE order in which an audience will scan a magazine ad/page:

1. Picture first,
2. Headline second,
3. Copy last.

To quote Ogilvy himself:

“Readers look first at the illustration, then at the headline, then at the copy. So put these elements in that order – illustration at the top, headline under the illustration, copy under the headline. If you put the headline above the illustration, you are asking people to scan in an order which does not fit their habit.”

And to paraphrase Steve Krug, don’t make the reader think; it’s just as easy to stop reading or engaging with the ad as it is to expend the extra effort navigating an oh-so-creative-but-against-the-grain layout.

Eye Tracking Heat Maps Prove the Power of Ogilvy’s Layout

The brilliant people over at Think Eye Tracking recently put three different car ads to the test: one Ogilvy-inspired 1-page layout compared to 2 new-school double-trucks (aka 2-page spreads). You can see their blog post about  their tests here, but I’ve also posted the Ogilvy-inspired heat map below. Check it out:

Notice how the headline and body copy receive most of the attention.  The picture draws the eye, but the messaging gets the most time and attention from the viewer/reader.

Unfortunately, a direct comparison of heat maps isn’t possible, because Think Eye Tracking only posted the heat map from the Porsche add and not the ones from the Mercedes and BMW ads.  But they DID give percentages of each ad’s ability to create reader retention of various elements within the ad, including the  call to action.  Assuming that the call to action was made within or at the end of the body copy (a fairly safe assumption), we can see how the ads stack up in terms of getting people to read the copy/pay attention to the messaging:

• Ogilvy Layout/Porsche Ad: 59% of readers noted the call to action
• Mercedes Ad: 29%
• BMW Ad: 11%

The Ogilvy Layout doubled readership of the copy while using half the ad space!

Incidentally, the use of a 1-pager instead of a double-spread was also recommended by Ogilvy, as the double-spread cost much more but didn’t increase readership in proportion to its cost.

And for those of you who read this far, or who doubted Ogivly’s performance-based bias, enjoy this short video of Ogilvy addressing the Direct Marketers of his day:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Just for the record, while I DO draw some distinctions between the online world and old-school direct marketing, I also think that online “marketers” who stray too far from direct marketing principles end up producing websites like this:

www.porsche.co.uk/innerstrength

In case you’re wondering, yes, that is the URL used in the Porsche ad’s call to action.  Just the sort of thing you’d remember after flipping through the ad isn’t it?  Not.

Anyway, go ahead and frustrate yourself by interacting with that “piece of work” for awhile.  You’ll undoubtedly find yourself wishing that the same, sane approach to design and layout had been used in creating the website as had been used in designing the ad.

P.S. I’m not advocating a literal use of the Ogilvy layout to a digital format, but rather an intelligent application of Ogilvy’s subordination of design, creativity, and layout to messaging. More about that in a follow up post…

[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

Our search on Google started with the term “polo shirts” but provided us with an ad for “Polo Shirts for Man.” I guess women must never search for “polo shirts” even though LandsEnd sells women’s polo shirts on the site. The ad copy talks about the variety of fabrics and colors and LandsEnd does a good job of providing scent from the ad to the landing page.

My initial observation for this page was that people get to this page and would tend to narrow down their selection by size first. If you look closely at the main “hero” shot on the page you’ll see this blue horizontal line and inside it options to narrow down by size.

My suspicion was that most visitors were not seeing it. So the first thing I did was run a heat map on the landing page.  The results were the first sign that I may be correct about this.  Now, if I had access to the web analytics, and if those links under the “hero” shot were tagged properly, we would know for sure whether those size links were being clicked or passed over unseen as visitors eyes jump down the page toward the product photos.

The other thing the heatmap showed is the importance of testing which shirt or product on the category page placed in each of the top positions on the page.  As you can see, high-intensity colors draw the eye more effectively than desaturated colors and neutral tones.

To confirm our suspicions and heat map findings, we decided to use another important tool in our toolbox, usability testing. UserTesting.com was kind enough to provide 3 free tests for us to look at LandsEnd.com at the conference.

The first thing I needed to do was provide the task for our testing participants to complete. This is a critical piece to setup correctly in order to get maximum insight from the test. Here is the scenario as I described it to them:

Purchase 2 different polo shirts and matching pants/shorts for a trip you are taking to a hot tropical location next week. You’d prefer clothing that are low maintenance and are going to feel most comfortable in the heat.

Go through until the end of placing an order but do not submit the order. If this wasn’t a test, would you have made a purchase? Why or why not?

The link provided took them directly to the Men’s Polo Shirt landing page that the pay per click ad above did. Each usability tester recorded their thoughts out load and we were able to see their screen exactly as they did while navigating the site.

Here you can see one of the testers as she goes through making her purchase for a trip to Jamaica. If you want to see the other tests and the test participants notes you can see them on this video summary page. Analyzing her test confirmed what I had seen in the other tests as well and validated my concerns on the page.

Click here to view the embedded video.

These tests confirmed that testers were missing the sort by size links in the blue bar under the hero shot and additionally some of the same issues that we identified in part 1 of the conversion makeover.

1. Conversion Challenge: People just don’t understand some of the jargon/terms that LandsEnd uses. In terms of size what does “Big” mean? Is XL big?

I also asked the users to look for shirts that had fabrics that were good in tropical heat, and every participant went straight to cotton (because they knew that) and missed the other special fabrics (like mesh and moisture wicking fabrics) LandsEnd offers.  See a sample screen shot of the selection process below:

Recommendation: LandsEnd looks at different ways to label these terms or to explain them to make them more intuitive for their non-catalog buyers (in the catalog they explain many of these terms).

They could do this in the hero shot area using visuals as well for the sizing options.

Priority/Likely Impact: High

Resources Required to Execute:

• Fixing the wording or labels in the pull down menu will probably take 2-3 hours, with most of the time spent on coming up with and agreeing on terms.
• Providing a more intuitive understanding of the sizing categories within the hero shot, would likely take an additional 2-3 hours.
• Total time = 4-6 hours, with a possible hour or two to actually implement the changes depending on their technology and platform setup

2. Conversion Challenge: The upsells on the product pages were virtually invisible to most of the participants until they went looking for them, but even then, the recommendations still weren’t entirely relevant for what the visitors were looking for.

Recommendation: As part of the product page redesign we did in part one of our makeover the recommendations were moved to a more visible location where there would also be additional room for 3 to 4 recommendations per product.  This is an improvement, bu LandsEnd still needs to ensure that the recommendations are as relevant as possible.  I would look to have a combination of recommendations for each product; one that is a similar product in the same category, one or two complimentary products from different categories (when looking at a shirt show pants or shorts), and possibly a complimentary accessory. Occasionally you can find a product were they have this kind of combination.

Priority/Likely Impact: Medium

Resources Required to Execute: Variable depending on LandsEnd product recommendation technology, which we are not privy to.

3. Conversion Challenge: People’s momentum was broken when they went to narrow down their selection from a category page and then further complicated when they went to purchase more than 1 of the same or similar items.

Recommendation: There are two things going on here. First the current task of narrowing down one’s selection criteria from a category page could be less than intuitive.  The location of the narrow search items, the too-subtle reaction to clicking on a faceted navigation selection, and the jargon used in some of the pulldowns all conspired to confuse shoppers looking to find just the right kind of polo shirt/item.

Secondly, the ease of adding multiple items of the same product but in different colors should take fewer clicks. Right now you have to click to close the cart, click to reselect your size, and then click to select your additional color before adding the item to cart.

I would recommend taking a look at how the Gap (Banana Republic, Old Navy, etc.) websites allow visitors to more easily narrow item selections through their quick look on their category page, and also how their “virtual cart” makes adding multiple items easier once the visitor has arrived on a product page.

I would also place some or all of the narrow selection/faceted navigation pulldowns above the featured products instead of having them outside the active window, in the left hand column.  Most important is the narrow by size option.

Priority/Likely Impact: High

Resources Required to Execute: This is a highly complex change which would likely require 30 or more hours, but which would have a huge impact and ROI.

Conclusion: I love LandsEnd and their fabulous products, and despite the conversion challenges we’ve discussed, the participants in our usability tests still felt confident they would buy from LandsEnd’s website.  However, very few people only buy clothing from one manufacturer or brand, and it only takes a slight erosion or friction in the process that would cause someone to abandon and head over to their next favorite (and competing) brand.

Usability testing is just one of the arrows in our quiver that we use for our OnTarget clients but occasionally we do this type of analysis for free for teaching purposes. Would you like to suggest your website for this type of review and improvement? If so, then be prepared to have it published. Just let us know in the comments below.

P.S. If you enjoyed this post please consider Tweeting it please.

• Don’t waste hyperlink words on non-descriptive or generic words.  Make links keyword rich and ensure that customers can predict where the link will take them.  Plan and link for maximum “scent”
• Use plain language.  In other words, talk to the dog in the language of the dog (about what matters to the dog).
• Front load user- and action-oriented terms.  For calls to action, we’ve always recommended an imperative verb + (implied) user benefit

But one of the article’s baseline assumptions seemed off to me: do website visitors really follow the F pattern regardless of a page’s graphic design and layout?  What if you’re selling lingerie?  Wouldn’t you expect a different eye-plot than the standard F-pattern; something closer to this:

The whole point of a properly designed page is to direct and guide the visitor’s attention/eyes where you want them to go.  That’s why visual prominence is so important to page layout and why people (rightly) spend money testing it with sophisticated eye tracking equipment in order to get these kind of results:

And for more text-heavy sites and pages, wouldn’t skim- and scan-friendly formatting that makes use of bullets, bolding, and embedded links similarly affect or change the F-pattern described by Nielsen? We know the direction of your model’s eyes can affect how people look at your page.

I’d also imagine that just as buying a new car suddenly helps its automotive twins to “magically” appear all over the road, a strongly scented link can allow the reader to notice and pick it out amidst the rest of the text on the page, despite the fact that it may or may not have been entirely front-loaded to maximize the impact of its first 11 characters.

What do you think?  Do page layout and scent trump (or at least alter) F-pattern scanning?

[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

Of course, there have always been some level-headed voices of dissent, but it was still interesting to read this bit of research on the effectiveness of fast-forwarded / DVR-ed ads.

Turns out that viewers have to pay attention to their TV Screens in order to fast forward through ads.  A real shocker that one, but hey, that means the viewer is actually seeing the ad (rather than running to the fridge for a snack) and that, properly formatted, these fast-forwarded ads can still influence viewers.

The trick was simply to keep the important brand images and information in the center of the screen as the task-focused fast-forwarding viewer was unlikely to see anything else.

So does this have anything to do with Websites?

Well, keep in mind that most Web visitors are also task-focused and unlikely to pay much attention to peripheral information.  So keep your important information, calls-to-action, and controls in the center window, otherwise, visitors may not see them in their “fast-forward” movement through your site.

PS Don’t forget to join us for our Free Webinar with guest Jim Sterne: 2009 is Our Year to Shine. Even if you can’t attend, please register to be notified when the play back is available.

Our good friends at Think Eyetracking recently completed an eyetracking study and compared it with an eyetracking study they did in 2005 for people looking at a Google search results page.

In this is a case a picture is worth a thousand words:

As seen in the heatmap above, fixations are studded around the top 5 results and the majority of clicks are upon the top 3 results (discounting the sponsored link). The sponsored link was actually not well attended to due to the fact that searchers are now familiar with advertiser placement within Google. The 2008 heatmap supports the recent trend observed by Cornell University (Their study found that the top 3 Google results get 79% of all clicks) and by AOL (Findings were that 63% of clicks were concentrated upon the top three search results).

What do you do when you don’t find your results right away? The same as 86% of the respondents who replied that they would modify the search terms or refine the search by category.

What do you think will change over the next 3 years in searcher behavior?

One thing is for certain you better still rank at the top and then be sure you can covert them to sales, leads, etc.

Granted, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but online, your customers don’t quite have the luxury of taste, touch, or smell. So one thing we can learn from ProFlowers.com’s impressive conversion rate last month is that images matter. A lot.

But what works for one website may not work for yours. Oftentimes, the product (or service) itself dictates which strategy is most effective. For instance, if you’re selling jackets, you may want to give visitors multiple views and zoom features.

It all depends on what you’re selling and how much the customer needs to see in order to feel confident to buy.

At last month’s eMetrics Summit in San Francisco, Bryan had a chance to sit down with WilsonWeb.com’s Ralph Wilson to discuss the importance of product images and how they affect conversion. Here’s the video…

That’s why A/B split-testing is essential; it’s how you know the images are making a difference.

For more ideas on how you can test your way to a better conversion rate, we cordially invite you to join us on Wednesday, July 9th for our free “Always Be Testing” webinar, co-hosted by FutureNow and Google Website Optimizer.

. .

Editor’s Note: Don’t keep this all to yourself. Help spread the word on Facebook…

According to ClickTale, total page length is not a strong factor in terms of how many people will scroll below the fold or reach the bottom of page.

• The average location for the fold is between 430 and 860 pixels down on the page.
• 76% of people will scroll below the fold.
• 15-22% of people will reach the bottom of the page.
• 64-68% of people will reach the halfway point of a page.
• 91% of pages are long enough to require scrolling.

This makes me wonder whether the same groups of people make it to the bottom of the page, regardless of where their web surfing takes them. This appears to relate to how different personality types interact with the web. Each type prefers to navigate in their own way, and particular groups, like Methodicals and Humanistics, are more deliberate in their information gathering and decision-making. These types make it to the bottom of the page far more often than their Spontaneous and Competitive cohorts, who demand instant relevance or they’re gone.

As the ClickTale article suggests, people are scanning and skimming a page’s content regardless of its size. Web developers should back away from trying to squeeze content toward the top of a page in order to supposedly make it easy to scan. Using proper amounts of white space, headers and sub-headers, along with bolded text and bullet points increases a page’s scannability for all personality types.

But keep in mind, shorter pages did perform slightly better. “Almost identical percentages of page views (15%-20%) reach the page bottom regardless of page height.” While the data was fairly similar regardless of the page length, shorter pages were closer to the 20% range.*

When it comes to critical elements, like calls to action, you don’t want 5% of visitors not seeing it. Pages have more power when they stick to one main idea per page. And remember, copy should be long enough to cover the essentials but short enough to be interesting. A site will generally get better search rankings by having highly relevant links from page-to-page. So, there are advantages to leaning toward shorter pages, but don’t sacrifice clear page design and layout to squeeze a few pixels off of a page’s length.

Bottom line: If you have good, well-formated web copy, they will scroll.

[*Note to Direct Marketers: Your ridiculously long, heavy-handed sales pages might be overkill.]

Be careful! Simply picking a “pretty” picture isn’t enough. Too often marketers will take people pictures and show them to a focus group to see which ones they relate to best. As marketers, we worry about the gender, style and overall quality of the picture relating to our message. There’s another crucial factor for marketers to consider: The direction in which the model’s eyes are facing.

Generally, it’s best when the model faces the content you want visitors to engage with first.

Take a look at the landing page below (I’ve blurred the text to protect the guilty innocent):

What happens is that you are naturally drawn to the image of the attractive model and our eyes tend to meet. Since her eyes are focused back at you, they stop you in your tracks — and researchers can prove it by studying your eyetracking gaze.

Take a look at the following ads that our friends at Bunnyfoot analyzed in eyetracking studies:

Now take a look at the Heatmap of the ads:

Next time you choose a face to appear on the web or in an ad, consider where it draws the beholder’s eyes. Ask yourself whether the image draws attention away from your persuasive message.

P.S. This is for my friends who like to test everything. I have a couple of questions: When testing pictures, do you currently break down the variables in the image? If so, were you aware of using the directional focus of a model’s eyes as a variable?

The one good habit I’ve picked up over the years: learn to compromise. Compromise, however, should be done intelligently and accountably.

One of the more contentious issues in web design presents itself when deciding where specific elements should go and how much space they should occupy. This is especially true in cases where politics (read: Who’s the most important person in the room?) rules. In print, such as in catalogs, they often look to cost and revenue per square inch. We’ll do something similar.

A popular technique we’ve developed over the years for removing politics from these important decisions is the Battleship Grid. The Battleship Grid is where you divide a page into a grid of horizontal and vertical lines of approximately equal size. (I’ll explain why it’s approximate shortly.) The main purpose for using this tool is to spark conversation. Click on the thumbnail image to see an example for a page from Dell.com.

How does the Battleship Grid work?

Let’s say you’re reviewing a page at 1024 x 768 resolution. Using Photoshop or an equivalent graphics program (or have your designer do this for you), work across the page, draw vertical lines up and down the screen. Create 10 rows, labeled “A” to “J”. Then, start drawing horizontal lines across the page. The first horizontal line is right underneath the top navigation. (Do this because your visitors are already subconsciously focusing on the center area, or “active window”. This is why I said “approximately equal size” above). After creating this line, add lines every 10 pixels, labeling them “1″ to “8″.

In Photoshop, add a layer where you can overlay the grid with different colors at 30% opacity (just enough so that they are visible and you can see the elements behind them on the page). Next, begin to assign values to the different areas of the grid. The values assigned to each of the shaded regions aren’t absolute; they’re relative values, and should be considered rough guidelines. You can follow what I set out in my example. I came up with these values, for the sake of simplicity, based on certain eyetracking, design composition, and vision physiology guidelines.

The area I assign the highest “value” to is the “active window” (see thumbnail). As Jakob Nielsen pointed out as early as January of 2000, “For almost seven years, my studies have shown the same user behavior: users look straight at the content and ignore the navigation areas when they scan a new page.”

Every eyetracking study in which I’ve participated has shown the exact same visitor behavior. It’s also important to understand human physiology and how the eyes view a page. Any artist who’s studied composition knows the “Rule of Thirds“. It’s a good guideline for understanding how people’s eyes naturally take in what they see, so you know where to place things yow wish to draw attention to naturally.

This, by the way, is why it’s so important to test your headlines; it’s usually the one thing virtually everyone sees on your page. Make it count.

How do you use the Battleship Grid?

Take a screenshot of the page in question at a 1024 x 768 resolution. Overlay this grid on top of it. Then, work with your team to agree to the values assigned to differing zones. Review elements in the high-value real estate zones. This is all about deconstructing size, design, and placement of elements for maximum impact.

For each design element, ask yourself:

• How much space does it occupy? Should it take more or less?
• What calls to actions are there? Are they obvious?
• Can it hold its own weight? Should some elements be moved to maximize effectiveness?
• Do the visual elements attract the different personality types?
• (You can also gray out anything customer’s don’t actually care about and ask these questions again.)

Now, take another look at the Dell.com Battleship Grid. What are your observations of the design? Are they under-utilizing any areas?

Limitations: Please be careful with this tool. It’s not meant to be scientific. It’s much better than the absence of not designing with any accountability. Depending on your design, you can skew how visitors engage with the site by using:

• strong, contrasting colors — You may have a form you want filled out in the right-hand column with, say, a monochromatic design, or one with minimal color compared to the rest of the design. If so, try placing a color-shaded background behind the form to make it stand out.
• a powerful image or by image placement — Most eyetracking heatmaps show that visitors spend virtually no time looking at loosely framed “lifestyle” images (e.g., a picture of executives shaking hands over a conference table). On the other hand, having a single closeup image of someone’s face can draw a lot of attention — especially when it’s above the fold. Keep in mind, if you use this technique, the person in the image should have their eyes facing the action — or content — you want them to focus on. Never have the subject looking straight at the visitor. It will distract them.
• different column widths — The active window for people who read left-to-right begins just beyond where the left-hand column ends. If there is no left-hand navigation, make sure to have enough empty “buffer” space from the browser for visitors’ eyes to settle.
• bigger text for headlines and larger-sized versions for key visual elements — Make sure the copy is formatted for people to scan and skim. Have headlines and sub-headers that stand out next to the body text.

Warning: It’s not advisable to yell at a colleague that you sank their battleship when minimizing or removing one of their preferred elements.

These “dollar words” are truly excellent… at going over your audiences’ heads while keeping them from accomplishing their goals by taking the actions you’ve set out for them. Anyone who’s taken our Persuasive Online Copywriting course would agree; Jakob is singing our tune in his discussion of a usability test he did on the U.S. Census Bureau website:

Beyond banner blindness, the major reason this homepage failed is that it used made-up terms or branded descriptions rather than plain-spoken words. Terms like “Population Clock,” “Population Finder,” and “QuickFacts” are not as descriptive as a simple line of text that says:

Current population of the United States: 302,740,627

Once Jakob goes beyond the heatmap, things really get interesting. He uses gaze plots (click thumbnail for image) to describe 4 main classes of behavior — “search-dominant,” “navigation-dominant,” “tool-dominant,” and “successful” — and gives insightful descriptions for each. If one were so inclined to look at the same observed behavior through the lens of the personality types or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, they’d see beyond the how people clicked, and into the why they clicked. It’s how they’re wired, naturally, according to their preference, or type.

A: The Competitive type — what Jakob observed as “search-dominant user” in this study; Using the MBTI lens we’d shorten their preference to operating in “NT” (iNtuitive/Thinking) mode- working at a fast pace, with a logical bias. The Competitive quickly scans and skims everything, looking for a clue as to how to solve the puzzle. Neither Active Window [define] content nor navigation seemed to be the path of least resistance. (Notice: Competitive type didn’t even look in the right-hand column; they’ve been trained to ignore it.)

The right and left vertical lines clearly illustrate the Active Window, where a Competitive is most likely to spend time. (The same goes for all types, but the Competitive does this more often.) Once this person struck out with copy in the Active Window, they aimed for navigation and, after quickly striking out there, went to search.

As a footnote, Jakob adds, this “user” (don’t get me started) mentioned the ability to search faster for the answer… at Google.

B: The Methodical type — Jakob’s “navigation-dominant user”; “SJ” (Sensing/Judging) on the MBTI — behaves with a logical bias similar to Competitives, but with a far more deliberate pace. You know the Methodicals in your audience. They’re not easily satiated by the answers you give them. They want more. No detail’s too small. They want it all. The good news from a marketing communications perspective is they’re willing to give you their time — provided you’re willing to give them relevant content.

The Methodical approach was to look everywhere; Active Window, left navigation, right-hand column (where the answer was actually sitting, cloaked in techno-babble and jargon), above the fold, below. You name it, they saw it. They just didn’t find anything that seemed like the answer until, finally, navigation appeared “most promising”.

C: The Spontaneous type — Jakob’s “tool-dominant user”; “SP” (Sensing/Perceiving) on the MBTI; — behaves at a fast pace, with an emotional bias. They’re highly experiential by nature. (Notice how Jakob describes this type as people who “like parts of websites where they can do something”.)

The Spontaneous visitor clicked around briefly, mainly focusing on the interactive features, before most likely leaving in failure. The gaze went everywhere, without focus, until a single feature grabbed their attention — that is, until another rabbit hole appeared (on another website) that was more entertaining.

D: The Humanistic type — Jakob’s “successful user”; “NF” (iNtuitive/Feeling) on the MBTI; — behaves at a slightly less deliberate pace than the Methodical, but with an emotional bias. Testimonials were created for this type. Show them how you’ve treated other people like them, and you’ll gain their confidence.

My assumption that Plot D represents the Humanistic is based on a few observations and is a shining example of the value of optimizing your experience based on a plan, rather than some out-of-the-box analytics package or testing platform. Had we planned this experience using a customer-centric methodology like Persuasion Architecture™ [define], we would have a context in which to view this gaze; to know how far off the execution was from what we’d originally planned. That would give us an actionable approach to making website improvements.

With Plot D, I see someone who’s spent more time than the other visitors — except, of course, for the Methodical — not just scanning and skimming, but actually connecting. I also see someone whose gaze fell oddly on the right-hand column; a behavior we typically see when people are capable of scrolling with their mouse without actually looking at the gutter to find the down arrow. They intuitively know the scroll bar is there.

Each of these experiences could have been planned better to achieve the task at hand, but that’s a post for a different day. For now, simply consider that people are wired to behave according to different preferences, their behavior fueled by their own momentum.

For you to achieve your goals, your audience must first achieve theirs. That means presenting what they want, when and where they want it — even if you have to make a single product page speak to 4 different “types” of people. But that’s the beauty of the medium. Online, it’s far easier to measure and improve your plan dramatically over time.

(Author’s Note: Anyone think my headline would’ve been better if it were “What People Do on Your Site and Why”? Now do you see the power of plain-spoken language?)

[Editor's Note: Here's more on persuasive copywriting by personality type and how to make your site reader-friendly. Enjoy!]

But now antother study has come out, saying men and women both look at faces and, um, other body parts.

So what’s really going on? I think the second study points out two interesting things:

• Women’s focus changed depending on their hormone level

• Women spent more time than men focusing on couples that were “intertwined”, if you know what I mean

I’ve started studying how men and women process images. One of my theories is that women are more interested in images with more than one person. They are intrigued by the relationship between the people in the image. I’m still researching, so don’t know if it’s true, but it’s a hunch.

I ran across a blog post Alex Harris did in 2004 talking about some testing Netflix was doing on their home page. Go check out the two examples: One is an image of a couple enjoying a movie, the other contains images of hit movies.

Now, I don’t know if this is really a male vs. female thing. It could be a Humanistic vs. Spontaneous-type thing. Humanistics are very relationship-focused. Spending time with a loved one may be more important than watching the movie. Spontaneous folks love action and adventure. They may prefer the actual act of watching the movie and not be that concerned with who they are watching it with.

But I wonder how these images would test if broken down by gender. Would women prefer the “relationship” image of the man and woman on the couch with the popcorn and wine? Would men prefer the “hit movie titles” image?

What do you think? Any preferences? Ladies? Gents?

People Don’t Read Online? Bull-crap!

If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that statement, I’d make Bill Gates look like a pauper. Think about it. What’s the first thing most people do when they get online… read their email. What’s better yet, new research from the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack study released at the American Society of Newspaper Editors (courtesy Editor and Publisher) shows that:

When readers chose to read an online story, they usually read an average of 77% of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and 57% in tabloids…

In addition, nearly two-thirds of online readers read all of the text of a particular story once they began to read it, the survey revealed. In print, 68% of tabloid readers continued reading a specific story through the jump to another page, while 59% did so in broadsheet reading.

The research also found that 75% of print readers are methodical in their reading, which means they start reading a page at a particular story and work their way through each story. Just 25% of print readers are scanners, who scan the entire page first, then choose a story to read.

Online, however, about half of readers are methodical, while the other half scan, the report found. The survey also revealed that large headlines and fewer, large photos attracted more eyes than smaller images in print. But online, readers were drawn more to navigation bars and teasers.

We knew it all along. We’ve been saying it for years since our clients’ web analytics proved it to us. Now you have the proof we can share. Give your readers something relevant to read and they will. Or are you still buying into that old wives tale that people don’t read online?