Generation Y, Web Design, & Eye Tracking

Soussan Djamasbi, Marisa Siegel, Tom Tullis

Taylor Seale, Iheanyi Ekechukwu, Romeo Kwihangana, Jake Flynt

Who is Generation Y?

82,000,000 people spending $200 billion annually

That’s as much as HALF of the spending economy

Makes them a LARGE and economically POWERFUL generation

Individuals ranging from 18 to 31 years-old

1st generation with technology and internet since childhood

What does Generation Y like?

- Main large image

- Celebrities

- Search feature

- Little text

Why is visual appeal important?

“If it looks pleasant, I trust it.” - Generation Y User

More visual appeal More trust

More trust causes an INCREASE in returning users

Two-Tiered Experiment Holistic interface evaluation through an online survey

For consistency, only looked at retail pages

Most popular sites then used with eye-tracking technology

Tracking data evaluates the effectiveness of a site’s elements

Holistic Evaluation Setup50 sites randomly selected from top 100 on the Consumer Satisfaction Index

Each evaluated by experts, 1 point for each category Mean - 1.94 Median - 2.0

If:Score > Median – High Appeal Group

Score < Median – Low Appeal Group

Holistic Evaluation Participants

98 internet-adept participants, from 18 to 31 years old

○ 55 male, 43 female○ Part college students, part Fortune 100 employees

Subjects participated via e-mail or an online forum

Holistic Evaluation Procedure

Subjects shown 50 web pages, randomly ordered

Rated pages on visual appeal, used five-point Likert Scale

Ratings ranged, from “not at all appealing” to “very appealing”

not at all appealing

neither appealing nor unappealing

very appealing

Holistic Evaluation Results

Pages in high appeal group earned a higher visual appeal rating than those in the low appeal group

Presence of ANY of the four characteristics INCREASED ratings

Eye-Tracking Setup

Took top three most liked and disliked pages from holistic evaluation

Analyzed eye movement with unobtrusive eye-tracking software Example of a Tobii 1750 in use

Eye-Tracking Participants

19 employees from a Fortune 100 company, 18 to 31 years old

All internet-adept from different company areas

Eye-Tracking Procedure

Rate the six pages, using the same five-point Likert Scale

During rating, eye–tracking measured fixation and gaze path

Eye-Tracking Results

After the eye-tracking experiment, the researchers:

1. Analyzed subjects’ fixation via heat maps

2. Performed an order analysis of fixation results

3. Analyzed the effects of visual appeal rating on fixation

Heat Maps

Level of fixation represented by a heat map

Fixation is a gaze longer than 300 milliseconds

Most Liked Heat Map

Least Liked Heat Map

Heat Map Insights

Faces and large images tended to induce fixation more

Celebrity faces present drew longer fixation○ Even a tiny face of Steve Jobs on Apple’s site

lengthened fixation

Text was only fixated upon if it was SHORT and SIMPLE

Fixation Order Results

Afterwards, delineated heat maps into areas of interest

Areas were then labelled by their order of fixation

Most Liked Fixation Order

Least Liked Fixation Order

Conclusion

The presence of distinct characteristics such as a large image, celebrity face, search box, and little text did indeed increase the visual appeal of websites with Generation Y users

Questions?