Study for Web Usability
Let’s take a glance at the user’s point of view. According to user experience expert Steve Krug[1] (Krug, 2006), web user’s reading is not reading, reading is scanning! Modern design trends attached with this simple concept which is to give away the content as quick reads, the user habits will do the rest.
When we are dealing with the community through a website, the psychological study will give an extra push for how our designs are perceived.
The Reality of Web Usability
As web users, once we hit on a link, then our finger easily goes to scroll. All it means speed up the page viewing process to save time. When we are looking at a news post, article, or product description, our eye directly goes to the title, subtitle, images, and short description. Then read the whole article only if we satisfy otherwise we skip and jump to another content.
My grandfather used to read newspapers daily. I noted, sometimes he glances at some pages and skips. The meaning of that is he is not reading everything. He scans the page titles, short titles, and images, then only stop when finding an interesting article. The process goes on.
The same user experience repeats itself throughout the ages and it works perfectly. As readers, we all do the same practice when we are surfing the web. Therefore design for good scanability.
User satisfaction depends on quickly understandable content with easy access.
Scanning Patterns, User Habits, and Web
Browsing is a rapidly interactive subject. Users Eye Prediction is a great aid to create user-friendly websites. Nielsen Norman Group analysis indicates which areas of content layouts a user looks at the most. They use eye-tracking heat maps that are rendered into unique eye-tracking patterns.
According to the research by Nielsen Norman Group (Nielsen, 1997), 16% of users read the web page word by word, and 79% of users are always used to scan the pages which are attending to quick reads for the simple elements, such as titles, sentences, images before getting into deeper the subject.
The average user’s usually having a common web layout in their brains and looks at your design with the state of that particular setup in mind. If the user can’t find the navigation where it commonly lays, they get confused and spent the time finding how to navigate the website, instead of go for a conversion.
The approach of laying out scannable text content in a commonly used web layout is a great advantage to the continuous engagement of the user.
Nielsen Norman Group further describes seven common patterns in which users scan an interface[2]:
F Pattern: This pattern is still the most common scanning pattern, even when scanning mobile interfaces. The user starts scanning with the first horizontal movement at the top of the letter F, continues with the second horizontal movement, and finally scans the left side in a vertical eye movement which lessens the attention.
Z Pattern: Simply known as a zig-zag model is works on full-width websites that balance simplicity as a priority. The user scans the page in a horizontal line, When the eye reaches the right corner, goes back to the left corner, and finds something to read horizontally. Call to action methods: Caller boxes or Title, short title, and featured image method can hold the eye along the Z pattern.
Layer Cake Pattern: A great pattern to have a study about content strategy and layout (page No). Users grasp this pattern when scanning titles and subtitles to instantly discover where the information they’re searching for can be easily found on the web page.
Spotted Pattern: Abstract designers typically force users to follow this scanning pattern. where they skip un-necessary spaces, a chunk of text blocks, and scan visual elements such as colorful buttons, shapes, and irregular forms of items to find the required information. Most of the content swapping layouts push the user to have this type of scan.
Marking Pattern: A very common pattern for mobile UX. Users eye control by forcing to a highlighted object, users continue the pattern while scrolling.
Bypassing Pattern: Users do not attend to read linearly but constantly pass the text and only scan for the required word.
Commitment Pattern: This pattern can rarely occur when a user is deeply interested in the content and excited to absorb all of the information.
We don’t read pages. We scan them
- Steve Krug
The human eye is automatically focused on particular points of interest. It purely depends on the person and can vary within the community.
Scanning patterns adopted by the user will directly relate to the user engagement for the web page: How easily the user can find the information through the web page? The amount of time they willing to devote to find it? If you are able to deliver the user’s requirement within two or three clicks, that will bring maximum user satisfaction which leads to gain the benefits.
[1] Krug, S. (2006). In Don’t Make Me Think — A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.
[2] Nielsen, J. (1997). How Users Read on the Web. Retrieved from nngroup: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/
