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March 28, 2007
Poynter Releases Initial EyeTrack07 Findings
More Text Read Online Than Previously Thought
Poynter this morning unveiled its 2007 EyeTrack study at the ASNE conference in D.C.
Some surprising findings came out of it, especially given the commonly held knowledge that readers – especially younger readers – tend to multitask, but do so less while reading the printed newspaper.
From Poynter’s summary released today, “Readers select stories of particular interest and then read them thoroughly. And there's a twist: The reading-deep phenomenon is even stronger online than in print. At a time when readers are assumed to have short attention spans, especially those who read online, this qualifies as news.”
Text of the ASNE presentation, a video produced last week at Poynter and more are available through the Poynter EyeTrack07 Web site. The full report will be released in June.
Here are the highlights and a few key findings relating to online news sites from this morning’s presentation (some of these may be myth-busters):
“A big surprise was that a much larger percentage of story text was read online than in print…. To look at a comparison, on average, online readers read 77 percent of what they chose to read. Broadsheet readers read an average of 62 percent. Tabloid readers read an average of 57 percent.”
“About half of the online readers were scanners, while the other half were methodical in their behavior.”
“In the first eye track study in 1991, we found that larger headlines and photos drew the most attention. This finding was supported in our study. And larger headlines and photos got dramatically more attention than smaller headlines and photos. In fact, they were the first points of entry in print. But online is different. It's navigation bars, teasers and story lists that get primary attention.” (Emphasis added.)
Poynter researchers might look at alternative distribution means such as mobile devices and search in the future using EyeTrack methods, which could really help newspapers trying to figure out mobile content and advertising.
When you have time, it may be worth taking a look back at Poynter's 2004 EyeTrack study in depth. That year, Poynter had newspaper fewer Web site viewers in the study, but those viewers looked at more Web sites. Some of the highlighted findings from that year were:
Readers generally start in the upper-left area of a news site's homepage, move right, and then scan down.
People look at text more than photographs -- but, the bigger the image, the more time a person will spend looking at it.
Larger text encourages scanning -- especially with headlines. Site visitors stayed engaged with smaller text for longer periods of time than dominant headlines.
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