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In several website surveys,MarketWatch had noticed thatthe way users navigated andresponded to ront pages varied substantially depending on thedesign and placement obanners and special oers,promoting companies’ ownproducts. To acquire deeperknowledge about the bannerormat’s eects on userbehavior and responsesMarketWatch set up acomparative study o ourdierent Telecom operatorwebsites. A Tobii T60 EyeTracker was used to defneparticipants’ visual attentionand interest.Key questions asked
The purpose o the study was to show i,and how, navigation is aected at rontpages by large or moving banners, promot-ing companies’ own products, and to learnmore about banners’ impact on userexperiences. MarketWatch set out to answerthe ollowing two questions:
•Howdoesdesignandplacementof
banners aect user behavior and websiteeciency?
•Howdoesdesignandplacementof
banners aect users’ total experiences oa website?
The study
Representing a relatively generic industrywith a limited number o key players, ourdierent Swedish telecom operators’websites were chosen as study objects:
Telia,Telenor,Tele2and3(Hi3G).
At the time the study was conducted, all ouroperators were promoting mobile broad-band services through special oers on theront pages o their websites. The ways theoers were visually communicated variedgreatly between the dierent websites interms o design and placement on the rontpages.The study involved 28 test participants,o which at least six were customers to eachtelecom operator (9 Tele2 customers,7 Telenor customers, 6 Telia customers and
6Hi3Gcustomers).
In a rst task-oriented part o the study,participants were instructed to locate“Mobile broadband services” and “Cus-tomer service” on the our dierent web-sites. Participants were asked to start at“their” operator site and continue to theother sites according to a top-o-mindprocedure. A Tobii T60 Eye Tracker wasused or displaying the dierent websitesand tracking the gaze o participants as theysearched or the dened targets.A qualitative interview part then ollowed,in which participants were asked about theiroverall impressions and experiences o eachwebsite; what they thought was good andwhat was bad. Participants were also askedwhich one o the our sites they would rankas the best and the worst, and i any o thesites had made them interested in switchingtelecom operator.
The results
The results o the study indicated that thebanner ormat had a negative impact on both
navigation(function)andoveralluser
experiences.Eye tracking data gave clear support or aphenomenon sometimes called “bannerblindness”. Most o the participants seamedto “avoid” banners with their gaze and didnot see mobile broadband oers designedlike this although they were right in ront otheir eyes (at the middle o the page on all
frontpages).Thelargerandmoreobvious
the design o a traditional banner, the lessthe participants saw it and the less it helpedthem to navigate. Moving banners were lessseen than non moving ones.
“MarketWatch uses a research method combing eye tracking withtraditional interviews for a holistic view of user behavior. Eye trackingadds spontaneous reactions and search patterns to traditional data suchas mouse clicks and rational answers. It provides deep insights into why a user behaves as he or she does and contributes with better guidancefor how to improve a design.” 
Peter Mackhé, Senior Research Consultant,MarketWatch
Leading eye Tracking TechnoLogy
©TOBII
®
. All other trademarks are the property o their respective owners.
EYE TRACKING RESEARCH
One o the participants in ront o aTobii T60 Eye Tracker.
Online marketing
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