Packed with examples of eye movements and design potentials

books:

	• Eyetracking Web Usability Jakob Nielsen, Kara Pernice New Riders Press, 2009 - 456 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Very Detailed and Insightful Study

Review: by Gregory West
prospector16@gmail.com
Member of the Computer Operators of Marysville & Port Huron (COMP)
[...]

Eyetracking
Web Usability

by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice
Published by New Riders[...]
(an mprint of Peachpit)
ISBN-13: 978-0321-49836-6
Pages: 437
USA: $[...]

Have you ever wondered why certain parts of a website catch your eye and you ignore or completely miss others? Whether you are designing a corporate website, simply working with a private site, or setting up a blog for the first time, this book will take you into the world of design and what works.

Authors: Neilson and Pernice take us on a detailed journey demonstrating what works and grabs your attention longer than a split second. Eyetracking technology allows you to see what people see on mainstream websites.

This book's main focus is "to study look patterns and how they relate to Web usage". It is "not a general book about Web usability", although it gives an excellent insight into why people go to certain areas on a page. Throughout the eight chapters, we learn how "Eyetracking" technology works. Also, you will find a summary covering human behavioral patterns, resulting from these extensive studies.

The second chapter is a little dry as it explains how this technology works, data collected, fake tests, study participants and cost evaluations. Other chapters get into the heart of page layout, navigation design elements and images. Chapter seven covers advertisements which is a major aspect of the Internet. Everything, from when people look at ads to the impact of ad placement, is detailed in a quite interesting fashion. Here is where you find out what works and what fails.

The authors point out the need for corporate executives to stand aside and let the professional graphic designers do their job. They show how upper-level management employees who know nothing about design and graphics can destroy the design due to ignorance of "web usability" and drive customers away.
Not contained in the book keeping "this book at a manageable size" are two "separate reports" made available online:

Eyetracking Methodology: How to Conduct and Evaluate Usability Studies Using Eyetracking: [...] and How People Read on the Web: [...]

If you are, in any way, part of a team that works on websites, or if you have your own personal blog and want your sites to work, this book is something that you will keep going back to as a reference guide. There is an excellent Table of Contents in the front and a well laid out Glossary in the back to make sure you find exactly the topic to research and learn.

for more information click here

Substantive

It's nice to read a marketing book that actually has substance. The majority of them are 99% fluff. The research in this book is ground-breaking and I have already implemented it to improve several websites.

for more information click here

"Eyetracking Web Usability" Rocks

I'm loving Nielsen's New Book, "Eyetracking Web Usability," coauthored with Kara Pernice and published just a few weeks ago. It is precisely the great insight I have come to expect from Nielsen over the years.

I have not been in the usability lab for months (and my husband no longer qualifies as the "average user" because I've made him my guinea pig too many times). "Eye Tracking Web Usability" really satisfies my need to observe user behavior.

Nielsen and Pernice eloquently describe user behavior with four-hundred-thirty-two pages of eyetracking evidence. Maybe I'm just a sucker for heat maps, but I say - Read it!

for more information click here

A few good take-home points

I was hoping there would be a few ground-breaking discoveries, but the book turned out to be more of reinforcement of what one good usability professional would have assumed already.

1. On websites people do tasks, not just browse around. So design for tasks characteristic of the website at hand and then test for it.

2. A little thing can speak volumes when put in the right spot on the page.

3. Men pay too much attention at other men's crotches.

While, as I said, what I learned from the book didn't come up as a big revelation, one very consoling thing is that, well, if Jakob and Kara thought that's all there's to it for now, that's bound be all there's to it. And as Seth Godin rightfully noted: "...if Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice have something to say about the way the Web works, you should listen."

@emironov

for more information click here

Packed with examples of eye movements and design potentials

Eyetracking Web Usability is based on one of the largest studies of eyetracking usability and employs usability methodology and eye-tracking technology to analyze 1.45 million user fixations on web sites. Designers and software developers - and libraries catering to them - will find this packed with examples of eye movements and design potentials.

reviews: page 1, 2

Eyetracking Web Usability is based on one of the largest studies of eyetracking usability in existence. Best-selling author Jakob Nielsen and coauthor Kara Pernice used rigorous usability methodology and eyetracking technology to analyze 1.5 million instances where users look at Web sites to understand how the human eyes interact with design. Their findings will help designers, software developers, writers, editors, product managers, and advertisers understand what people see or don?t see, when they look, and why.

With their comprehensive three-year study, the authors confirmed many known Web design conventions and the book provides additional insights on those standards. They also discovered important new user behaviors that are revealed here for the first time. Using compelling eye gaze plots and heat maps, Nielsen and Pernice guide the reader through hundreds of examples of eye movements, demonstrating why some designs work and others don?t. They also provide valuable advice for page layout, navigation menus, site elements, image selection, and advertising. This book is essential reading for anyone who is serious about doing business on the Web.

for more information click here

hot