Eyeball tracking

Schools can learn a great deal about reading habits from the publishing industry. Especially from this recent study, that tracked the eye movements of readers, both for print and online. The lessons are there to be applied in the learning  materials and communication channels.

Who did this and how did they do it? It was by a company called Poynter and they used sophisticated eye tracking instruments.  Here are its findings:

Photos and graphics
Colour photos held more attention than black and white

Photo captions were well read

Large photos and documentary ones (people in action) drew eyes more than small or staged photos

Infographics (explanatory graphics) received attention

Voice and opinion
Voice of the paper (editorials) received less attention than voice of the reader (think of all those customer reviews you read when online shopping)

Story packaging
Stories that had headline, story text, dominant photo, graphic or illustration plus at least one other storytelling device like Q&A, timeline, fact box or short list received more attention.

Information recall and story formats
Augmented story packaging (as above) both get viewed more and are better remembered.

Briefs
Small snippets of story in the margins well viewed and with images even more so (34% more)

Teasers

Visual elements that announce future articles later in the publication or website attract attention (twice as much as without visuals)

Reading sequences
The point of entry for reading print is in headlines whereas in online reading it’s the navigation.

Reference:
http://eyetrack.poynter.org/keys_01.html