Table Of ContentAcclaim for Eyetracking Web Usability
“Always ahead of the curve, always provocative, always insightful... if Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice
have something to say about the way the Web works, you should listen.”
—Seth Godin, Author, Linchpin
“Designing great interfaces requires more than creativity and mere consistency. The information
and tools on the Web are made for people. The more a designer knows about how people perceive,
read, think, scan, prioritize, skip, and absorb, the more effective their designs will ultimately be.
This eyetracking usability study, the largest ever held, provides powerful and very practical new
insights on how real people, trying to get real things done, see those interfaces. The results are,
well… eye opening. This is a great example of meticulous research and crisp data analysis, leading to
deeper understanding with a set of practical, clear-cut rules and recommendations that will make your
designs better.”
—Tjeerd Hoek, Executive Creative Director, frog design
“Jakob and Kara demystify eyetracking Web usability by delivering common sense and practical advice.
This book is a critical tool for anyone that wants to improve how to organize and treat Web content
for maximum usability and efficiency.”
—Armando González, UI Design Director, eBay
“This book has something for everyone: important Web design principles, eyetracking research
methods, and relevant business issues and examples. Whether you are a Web designer, user researcher,
or business owner, you will benefit from Eyetracking Web Usability.”
—Christian Rohrer, Ph.D., Senior Director of User Experience Design, Move, Inc.
“Expert usability practitioners Nielsen and Pernice offer Web page design guidelines from a unique
perspective of users’ recorded eye movements. Compelling gaze visualizations over actual, active Web
pages are included and amassed from an impressive number of studies and participants. The authors
provide interesting insights into user behavior, Web page content and layout, as well as giving guidance
for future eye tracking research. The book will be an indispensable addition to eyetracking and Web
usability bookshelves.”
—Professor Andrew Duchowski, School of Computing, Clemson University;
Author, Eye Tracking Methodology: Theory and Practice
“Finally a book about Web design where the guidance given is derived less from the authors’ opinions
and more on real research data using the Eyetracker! As an executive responsible for implementing
global learning technologies, Kara and Jakob provide simple and insightful ways to ensure that we
take smart approaches to every screen and task we want people to perform on a Web page. It’s a great
tool for anyone trying to drive performance out of their Web site.”
—Rob Lauber, Vice President, Yum! University, Yum! Brands, Inc.
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Jakob Nielsen
Kara Pernice
Eyetracking
Web Usability
New Riders, An Imprint of Peachpit, Berkeley, California USA
Eyetracking Web Usability
Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice
New Riders
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510/524-2178
510/524-2221 (fax)
Find us on the Web at: www.newriders.com
To report errors, please send a note to errata@peachpit.com
New Riders is an imprint of Peachpit, a division of Pearson Education
Copyright © 2010 by Nielsen Norman Group
Project Editor: Susan Rimerman
Development Editor: Camille Peri
Copy Editor: Kim Wimpsett
Production Editor: Hilal Sala
Compositor: WolfsonDesign
Indexer: James Minkin
Cover design: Peachpit
Interior design: Peachpit
Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact permissions@
peachpit.com.
Notice of Liability
The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every precau-
tion has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the authors nor Peachpit shall have any lia-
bility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly
or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware
products described in it.
Trademarks
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed
as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark
claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and
services identifi ed throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefi t of such
companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade
name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affi liation with this book.
ISBN-13: 978-0321-49836-6
ISBN-10: 0-321-49836-4
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in the United States of America
For the next generation, Oskar and William.
—Jakob Nielsen
For the members of the Lotus Graphics Products
Group circa 1991, especially MaryKate Foley and
Betsy Fortin. I am grateful for the introduction to
usability and the encouragement to experiment, fail,
and succeed in the name of making simple designs
to be proud of.
—Kara Pernice
Acknowledgments
Many people generously shared their experience, time, and
knowledge to help us bring this book to fruition. We feel
such gratitude to them all.
None of this would have been possible without our gifted,
talented, and ridiculously hardworking research assistants:
Sukeshini “Suki” Grandhi, David Shulman, and Tatyana
Nikolayeva. They wholeheartedly labored on this project—
running studies, writing code, and quantifying and analyzing
data—even longer than they had initially promised and
ever pleasantly. If they ever apply for a job with you, hire
them immediately at top salary.
Along those lines, Nielsen Norman Group’s Susan Pernice
did anything and everything, from recruiting testers to
drawing about a million “areas of interest” boxes to fi lling
in spreadsheets with success scores and questionnaires. For
this and more, we thank her.
Thanks to our colleagues at NN/g: Jen Cardello provided
unselfi sh feedback in IA and layout-related chapters. Luice
Hwang magically juggled our non-ET schedules so we
could do this work. Amy Schade consulted with us on
e-commerce-related ET research. And the rest of Nielsen
Norman Group showed support throughout this project:
Raluca Budiu, Janelle Estes, Susan Farrell, Garrett Goldfi eld,
Hoa Loranger, Dr. Julie Moran, Chris Nodder, Don Norman,
Sherrill Saxer, and Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini.
We are also thankful to Hannah Kain and her team at
ALOM in California.
Thank you to Andrew T. Duchowski, PhD, of Clemson
University, for his comprehensive book Eye Tracking
Methodology, an easy-to-understand primer for anyone
delving into eyetracking research. His work and answers
to our questions were much help when we were forming
many of our initial research ideas.
We thank Peter Brawn, PhD, from eyetracker in Australia
for rounding out our ET library of ideas with information
about eyetracking in a real-world, non-Web environment.
vi Eyetracking Web Usability
Thank you to Rob Stevens at Bunnyfoot for being an
obliging sounding board and for sharing his own ET
research initiatives.
Thanks to Michael E. Goldberg, MD, at Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons, for answer-
ing questions about how the human eye works in very
specifi c situations.
Thank you to everyone at Regus at One Penn Plaza in
Manhattan, where the studies were conducted.
To the good people at Tobii Technologies in Sweden, thank
you for your support with the equipment so we could
conduct these studies and analyze the information. We
appreciate your patience with the challenges that come
with dealing with a vast amount of data.
Kara thanks her family and especially her wonderful parents,
Mary and Robert Pernice, for their unwavering encourage-
ment and love. She thanks sweet Jeff Nichols for his ever
offbeat and surprising humor. (And Columbo thanks him
for making sure he was fed, was watered, and got to chase
squirrels while Kara was working long hours.) She also
thanks her dear friends for their encouragement, especially
Danny Petrocchi, Sharon “ShaRON” LeBlanc, and Cecilia
Ott for convincingly acting interested in her ramblings about
the eye and the Web for years. Your stamina is incredible.
Finally, big thanks to our editors, Susan Rimerman, Kim
Wimpsett, and Camille Peri. Camille should probably be
bronzed and raised for the hours she put in on this work.
We hope the blue dots you are seeing go away soon.
—Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice
Acknowledgements vii
About the Authors
Jakob Nielsen
Jakob Nielsen, PhD, is a principal of Nielsen Norman
Group (NN/g). He is the founder of the “discount usability
engineering” movement, which emphasizes fast and effi cient
methods for improving the quality of user interfaces. Nielsen,
noted as “the world’s leading expert on Web usability” by
U.S. News and World Report and “the next best thing to a
true time machine” by USA Today, is the author of the
best-selling book Designing Web Usability: T he Practice of
Simplicity (New Riders Publishing, 2000), which has sold
more than a quarter of a million copies in 22 languages.
Nielsen’s other books include Usability Engineering (Morgan
Kaufmann, 1993); with Robert L. Mack, UsabilityInspection
Methods (Wiley, 1994); Multimedia and Hypertext: The Internet
and Beyond (Morgan Kaufmann, 1995); International User
Interfaces (Wiley, 1996); with Marie Tahir, Homepage Usability:
50 Websites Deconstructed (New Riders Publishing, 2001);
and with Hoa Loranger, Prioritizing Web Usability (New
Riders Publishing, 2006). Nielsen’s Alertbox column on
Web usability has been published on the Internet since
1995 and has about 200,000 readers at www.useit.com.
From 1994 to 1998, Nielsen was a Sun Microsystems
Distinguished Engineer. His previous affi liations include
Bell Communications Research, the Technical University
of Denmark, and the IBM User Interface Institute. He
has been awarded 79 U.S. patents, mainly on ways of
making the Internet easier to use. Nielsen holds a PhD
in human-computer interaction from the Technical
University of Denmark.
viii Eyetracking Web Usability
Kara Pernice
Kara Pernice is the managing director at Nielsen Norman
Group and heads the Company’s East Coast operations.
The Wall Street Journal has called her “an intranet guru.”
Pernice has more than 18 years of experience evaluating
usability and is well versed in the usability areas of col-
laboration, document management, multimedia, database
design, print materials, and consumer-oriented products.
She has done numerous studies on the effects of aging,
accessibility, and low literacy. She has also designed prod-
ucts ranging from Web calendar applications to dictation
devices for radiologists to server monitoring programs.
Before joining Nielsen Norman Group, Pernice established
successful usability programs at Lotus Development, Iris
Associates (an IBM subsidiary), and Interleaf. She managed
the fi rst user experience program for Lotus Notes, and
after the fi rst usability release, PC Magazine wrote, “If this
were summer camp, Lotus Notes would walk away with
the Most Improved Camper award.”
Since joining NN/g, Pernice has worked with clients in
a variety of industries and has led many intercontinental
research studies, generated design guidelines, and coauthored
study reports. She has presented countless seminars and
conference keynotes on Web and intranet design, usability
research techniques, usability management, and the politics
of usability.
With one usability method or another, Pernice has watched
thousands of people using software and the Web over the
years. She may be best known for practicing and champion-
ing usability videos as a tool for analyzing, presenting, and
teaching about usability and design.
Pernice chaired the Usability Professionals’ Association 2000
and 2001 conferences and served as 2002 conference advisor.
Pernice holds an MBA from Northeastern University and
a BA from Simmons College.
She lives in New York and Cape Cod with her zealous
terrier, Columbo.
About the Authors ix
