First the text, then the picture
Readers of online newspapers show completely different behavior than print readers, according to a U.S. study
According to a U.S. study, readers of online newspapers show a completely different behavior than print readersBy Luzi Weber According to a journalist's wisdom, you should lead the reader into the text via the image, because most readers would first direct their attention to photos and graphics and then to the title and text. But that's not true for online newspaper readers.
A study by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg (Florida) and Stanford University shows that readers of online newspapers behave completely differently from readers of print media. That's why they have to be addressed differently.
The Poynter Institute measures the behavior of print and online readers using a method in which test subjects are fitted with glasses that accurately record and store eye movements. A complicated cluster is used to process the data obtained. The most recent test setting involved 67 people from three American cities reading their favorite news sites.
While print readers are primarily captivated by images, online readers concentrate on the text first and usually only pay attention to images after the text - if at all: 78 percent of the online readers surveyed did not give graphics on websites a glance. Photos fared somewhat better: 64 percent paid attention to them. In contrast, 82 percent of the test persons looked at short teasers, and 92 percent even looked at longer articles.
With 45 percent attention, advertising banners performed better than graphics, but significantly worse than photos. These results should give online advertisers, who also believe in the power of images on the web, food for thought.
We can only speculate about the reasons for web readers' obsession with text. According to the Poynter Institute, long image loading times can be ruled out as a reason. This problem has been eliminated by high-speed connections. The Poynter analysts, on the other hand, suspect that small graphics and images in low resolution, as they are often used for performance reasons, simply do not attract the same attention as their larger and, above all, sharp counterparts in print.
Gender
Prejudices eliminated
As part of the "Eyetrack 2000 Study," the Poynter Institute also evaluated the type of texts read. It was also possible to disprove a gender-specific prejudice: Women read more sports news than men.
A study by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg (Florida) and Stanford University shows that readers of online newspapers behave completely differently from readers of print media. That's why they have to be addressed differently.
The Poynter Institute measures the behavior of print and online readers using a method in which test subjects are fitted with glasses that accurately record and store eye movements. A complicated cluster is used to process the data obtained. The most recent test setting involved 67 people from three American cities reading their favorite news sites.
While print readers are primarily captivated by images, online readers concentrate on the text first and usually only pay attention to images after the text - if at all: 78 percent of the online readers surveyed did not give graphics on websites a glance. Photos fared somewhat better: 64 percent paid attention to them. In contrast, 82 percent of the test persons looked at short teasers, and 92 percent even looked at longer articles.
With 45 percent attention, advertising banners performed better than graphics, but significantly worse than photos. These results should give online advertisers, who also believe in the power of images on the web, food for thought.
We can only speculate about the reasons for web readers' obsession with text. According to the Poynter Institute, long image loading times can be ruled out as a reason. This problem has been eliminated by high-speed connections. The Poynter analysts, on the other hand, suspect that small graphics and images in low resolution, as they are often used for performance reasons, simply do not attract the same attention as their larger and, above all, sharp counterparts in print.
Gender
Prejudices eliminated
As part of the "Eyetrack 2000 Study," the Poynter Institute also evaluated the type of texts read. It was also possible to disprove a gender-specific prejudice: Women read more sports news than men.
