Using Heat Maps To Analyze Website Usability
Heat maps have become a very useful tool in analyzing website usability.
Website Heat map
A website heat map is a multicolored schematic of a web page showing the pattern of reader interaction (usually viewing). Heat maps are depicted in colors from red (most viewed) through yellow, green and blue (least viewed) to no color unviewed. This information can help an advertiser decide where to place advertising on a page, for example.
F Shaped Viewing Pattern
Jacob Nielson, labeled the world's leading expert on Web usability by U.S. News & World Report, and his group Nielson Norman, conducted a test of web users viewing thousands of web pages to understand how people read information online. They discovered that, unlike daily viewing, which is typically tracking across a page from left to right, line by line, Internet viewers use a different viewing pattern. This reading pattern looks like an F and has the following three characteristics:
- Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F's top bar.
- Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F's lower bar.
- Finally, users scan the contents left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eye tracking heat map. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heat map. This last element forms the Fs stem.
One of the problems with this type of analysis is that unless you pair the visual tracking with feedback from the viewer, you do not really know if the viewer is fixated on a certain part of the website because it is interesting or appealing or because it is confusing and needs to be re read several times to make sense of it. This visual analysis is typically done in a laboratory.
These findings provide useful guidance for website development.
Recognize that people do not read the entire page content, most of the time. Instead they scan to pick up the basic ideas from the page.
- The first two paragraphs, i.e., the top horizontal stroke of the F should contain the most important information.
- Information placed down the left hand side of the page will be read more frequently so place the most important words in the first two places on the page as you read down.
Interaction Heat Maps
Heat maps can also be used to illustrate the behavior of your customers on your site. There are a number of companies offering programs that can detect clicks on a site and generate a map that displays where the highest levels of activity have been on the site.
For many, you need to sign up, usually pay a fee although some services are currently free, at least to individuals. You download their software, which captures click behavior and generates the heat map. In some cases you can watch your users click through your site. While this may seem a bit creepy and voyeuristic, it is incredibly helpful to see how people react to your site, how you can improve the position of your most important design elements, and how you can optimise ad revenue from your website.
Click heat mapping in real time is probably well worth the fee to get a close up look at how well your website does or does not work.
by: Jane Dawson
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