Eye Insights: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Visual Design (Sans Eye-tracker)

Not everyone can afford eye-tracking for every project. So, is there anything that can be learned about the effectiveness of your visual design without the expense of using an eye-tracker?

Every web site design has a “visual hierarchy”, whether intentionally created or purely by accident. Visual hierarchy refers to the order in which the elements on a page are viewed. While eye-tracking can provide concrete data about how your users view your site, there are a variety of low-tech methods that will still allow you to gain some insights into how your site might be viewed.

The term “gestalt” refers to the human perceptual process that allows people to interpret stimuli “holistically.”

Figure 1. Example of gestalt principles

One activity that you can perform is to test out how the gestalt principles influence the visual perception of your interface. Create several variations of your interface using an image manipulation software package like Photoshop. The variations should be based on how the human visual system perceives stimuli. For example, applying a gaussian blur filter will eliminate most details from the design, and highlight aspects such as areas with high color saturation. Another example is to use a black and white filter to help define areas of high contrast. Areas of high contrast surrounded by white space make the area more noticeable.

Figure 2. Web site (unedited)

Figure 3. Gaussian blur applied

Figure 4. Black & white filter applied

To test the visual hierarchy, show each variation of the design to each participant. Instruct the participants to quickly circle the aspects of the design that they notice first; do not give them more than a few seconds on each page to complete this exercise. You should make sure to counterbalance the variations to eliminate bias.

By performing this activity informally with several participants, you can quickly discern the areas that are most likely to receive the highest amount of visual attention and generally the order in which they will be noticed.