A very interesting project called Eyetrack has been conducted by the Poynter Institute asking what people see when they view a news website or multimedia feature. Is it what the site's designers expect? ... Perhaps not.

The Eyetrack III study literally looked through the eyes of 46 people to learn how they see online news. Here is the review the study's key findings. For example:

We observed that with news homepages, readers' instincts are to first look at the flag/logo and top headlines in the upper left. The graphic below shows the zones of importance we formulated from the Eyetrack data. While each site is different, you might look at your own website and see what content you have in which zones.

Advertising is also taken through its paces:

We found that ads in the top and left portions of a homepage received the most eye fixations. Right side ads didn't do as well, and ads at the bottom of the page were seen, typically, by only a small percentage of people.

These are but two highlights. Prove them right and read the whole thing, here are the directions:

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