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February 02, 2005
Eyetracking a Navigation Bar -- how many elements are read? Well, it depends...
This right-hand navigation bar was the final motivator that got this blog started. When I first saw it, it wasn't doing so great.
It was on the (old) San Francisco Police Department website, which, some might say, was "cluttered" before the homepage redesign. I know that context plays a big part in how web elements are viewed, but when I saw it in a follow-up study on the (new) re-designed website, I at first thought it was a completely different right nav!
| Old Page Design | New Page Design |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Eyetools Heatmaps™ showing group viewing trends on each web page (Eyetools Heatmap Legend) | |
The moral of the story: A change on one part of the page can impact other, unrelated elements on the page. The right navigation bar was used completely differently on the new re-designed website because the content to the left of it changed.
Posted by Greg Edwards on February 02, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
It just looks like more attention was paid overall to the site with the new design. Perhaps a site has to look sufficiently interesting to warrant investigating what else is on the site (as listed on the navigation bar). I think the fonts should be a little bigger on the nav bar too. I had to look a little harder just to read it.
Posted by: Doug | February 11, 2005 09:30 AM
Doug, the new site did perform better overall. It's interesting to see the effect of a better design -- Clutter reduces what people look at in this case.
Posted by: Greg | February 11, 2005 10:21 AM
I would say you need more information to tell what this means, it could certainly be negative or positive.
Positive : your content has improved, and causes people to be more interested in what is on your site as a whole
Negative : people can no longer find what they are looking for, and are forced to search through the nav
Posted by: Jason Coyne | February 11, 2005 02:07 PM
Jason, please notice that I never said whether it was good or bad! We just report what "is", and it is the discussion that combines the knowledge of what is happening with the business goals that is of greatest benefit. After all, what is "good" and "bad" depends on the client's goals for the site, as well as on the visitor's goal.
Posted by: Greg | February 11, 2005 04:27 PM