|
Observations on Multimedia Features
As part of the Eyetrack III research, we had test participants
view a variety of multimedia
editorial features. Each of the 46 people we tested was
given the same list of several features and told to look at
any they wanted. Then we tracked their eye movements during
the 10 minutes they had for this task.
EYETRACK III FINDINGS
This report is one of many from the Eyetrack
III study of broadband-era news websites.
46 people were tested for one hour
each in December 2003 by Eyetools
Inc. in partnership with the Poynter
Institute and the Estlow
Center. During the test period, each test subject viewed
mock news websites created for research purposes and real-world
multimedia news features. Results were published in September
2004.
We didn't control the subject matter; we didn't control any
variables; we didn't have a hypothesis about what we might find.
Rather, this portion of the test was strictly observational.
We wanted to see if we could spot any patterns that would
lead us to better understand how people interact with multimedia
editorial content; to spot some multimedia best practices
that seemed to engage people; and to give us guidance for
future, in-depth eyetracking research on how online users
interact with different forms of multimedia content.
The observations we've made in this article are qualitative,
as if we had gathered a mini-focus group of people who are
not regular readers of a website. (If we had tested regular
readers of a website, they might have responded differently.)
The features we selected for this test varied in format and
scope. Some were award winners, some were not. They represent
a typical cross-section of multimedia features found on news
websites.
Not every participant viewed every feature tested, so the
sample size for each one is modest.
Here's what we observed.
"Enrique's Journey" is a Pulitzer Prizing-winning
package from the Los Angeles Times, published in the print
edition, and also published online with a significant number
of multimedia enhancements.
Our Eyetrack III testing of this project suggests that few
people saw the multimedia elements in this package, most likely
because of the way it was designed.
Nine of our 46 test subjects viewed this multimedia package
as part of our testing. Our first clue that they didn't become
engaged is the heatmap
of the main page, below, which shows that the page did not
guide visitors' eyes in any coherent fashion to key elements
of the page. (A heatmap is an aggregate image showing overall
eye activity on a webpage. Red-orange areas indicate the
most eye activity, blue-black the least.) Four of the nine
visited the main Enrique page then backed out without clicking
on anything.
Of the nine people who spent time with this package, the
average number of seconds spent was only about eight, and
it averaged only nine eye fixations per person. Among the
nine people viewing the main page of the Web package, only
four clicks resulted (from everyone combined).
Below the central art element of the feature's main page
is a small video window featuring the reporter speaking about
the project. Our test subjects ignored this element entirely;
not only did they choose not to run the video, they barely
even looked at it.
We noticed that with the main page, Eyetracking revealed
no common area where people first cast their gaze which suggests
there's no dominant entrance point.
At the article level (after clicking through from the main
page), neither of the two people who viewed an article saw
the multimedia options available in the right column; they
just read text.
Possible lessons to be learned from this package:
- It's important to promote entrance to multimedia elements
in ways that provide the user with room to view and/or click.
Not to do so means they may never be seen -- not seen then
ignored, but rather not noticed at all.
- With an enterprise package with lots of components, layout
is especially important. Designers need to think about how
readers will be drawn to a particular element.
Read LATimes.com editor Richard Core's reaction to this eyetracking review.
Multimedia story 2: Camp
Heartland - Time.com
This stand-alone multimedia feature started with an auto-running
introduction. Five out of 46 Eyetrack III participants viewed
this project. Three of them watched the intro, and two of
them hit the "Skip intro" button.
Most of this feature includes photos in the right side of
the window, which are a combination of user-controlled and
auto-running. The reader must click an arrow to move to the
next photo, but some of the frames are auto-running to show
several pictures in succession -- then the reader has to click
again to get to the next batch of photos.
Everyone looked at the images, and the typical behavior was
to read the text at the left, then look to the photo, back
to the text, and back and forth as photos changed.
As you can see from the heatmap
image above, most of the eye fixations were on the text. For
eye fixations on the photos, as we often found with photos
throughout Eyetrack III, fixations tended to be on human faces,
and overlap less than on text.
None of our five readers of this page used the small thumbnails
to navigate to other "chapters" of the feature.
(Note on the heatmap above how few eye fixations landed upon
them. A heatmap is an aggregate image showing overall eye
activity on a webpage. Red-orange areas indicate the most
eye activity, blue-black the least.) After clicking through
the first nine photos of the first section, most of them didn't
realize that there were other chapters. They thought they
were "done" with the graphic when, in fact, there
was much more available.
An alternative way to continue to the next chapter was to
click the arrow after the first group of photos, but only
one person figured that out. The "9/9" sequence
indicator fooled them into thinking that they were done, when
they could have reached the next chapter by clicking the arrow
one more time.
Possible lessons to be learned from this package:
- Subtle navigation appears to be challenging for readers.
It's important to make navigation obvious, because most
people don't spend much time looking intently at multimedia
pages.
- Small thumbnails don't get looked at much, it appears.
(We noticed the same thing on MSNBC.com's Big Picture feature
described below.)
MSNBC.com is a news site that's long been pushing the envelope
with multimedia editorial content and its "The Big Picture"
series of features pushes the hardest. The Big Picture combines
video, audio, still images, text, interactive quizzes, and
background material. An innovative feature is a video narrator
who guides you through the features.
We tested The Big Picture Oscars 2003 package. (Note: MSNBC.com
changed the template somewhat for Big Picture packages published
after the 2003 Oscars package.) Six of our 46 test subjects
opted to spend time with this feature.
This multimedia project seemed to engage those who spent
time with it. The average time spent viewing it was 189 seconds;
on average, people who viewed the feature had 298 eye fixations
throughout the viewing period, making it the second-most intently
viewed of our eight multimedia features.
The Big Picture Oscars is, upon being launched, an auto-running
feature. You can simply sit back and watch as the various
segments of the presentation are shown to you. Or you can
click on one of the navigation elements on the left side and
control where you go and what you see and hear, changing the
default order if you wish.
All six viewers of this feature let the auto-run play for
at least a little while upon entering the presentation. However,
five of the six chose to use their mouse to interact with
content, to control its flow.
In terms of where people looked on the page initially, all
six people exhibited the same behavior. Within the first seven
seconds, everyone looked at the left navigation area and the
main content window.
Five of six people looked at the "time remaining"
graphic below and to the left of the main content window,
as you can see in the heatmap
image below. For the various video segments of the feature,
the counter gave viewers a quick read on how long the segment
would last.
An interesting observation involved the left side of the
feature, where there are a series of small icons next to text
links to the various sections ("Welcome"; "Vote:
Best Actor"; etc.). As you can see from the heatmap
above, which aggregates all six participants' data across
their entire visit to the piece, most of the people (four
of the six) did not look at the icons, but only at the text
descriptions.
Of the six viewers of this feature, two spent only a short
time with it before going elsewhere (less than half a minute);
three spent a medium amount of time (from a couple to several
minutes); and one spent a lot of time (9 minutes) looking
at it and examining most parts of the presentation.
The two who left the feature quickly never visually engaged
with the female narrator in the lower right. The rest did
look at the narrator, moving their eyes back and forth between
the main video/image window and the small narrator area when
she was talking.
Of the four people who did look at the narrator, three of
them looked only at her face; the other looked at her face
and upper body.
Finally, note that on the feature there is a small "Hyundai"
sponsor link just above the narrator's face. That small, subtle
ad received a lot of eye fixations; five of six people looked
directly at it. This fits with observations elsewhere
in our research that ads in close proximity to often-viewed
editorial content also receive lots of direct views.
Possible lessons to be learned from this package:
- The innovative technique of having a video narrator guide
viewers through a complicated graphic seems to attract readers.
People looked at her and paid attention to her face.
- Our small sample of viewers opted to control the flow
-- bouncing around to specific auto-run segments -- rather
than rely solely on the length-of-feature auto-run capability
of this multimedia project. While the sample isn't big enough
to make a sweeping conclusion, our observations do point
to the notion that interactivity is important to Web users.
Read MSNBC.com senior producer for broadband productions
Ashley Wells' reaction to
this eyetracking review.
Multimedia story 4: Obesity
in America - Associated Press
This AP multimedia graphic is simpler than some of the other
features we included in this part of the Eyetrack research.
It contains a number of interactive charts and infographics
outlining the obesity problem in the U.S., presented sequentially
(but no photos, slideshows, audio, or video).
One of the first things we noticed was that the navigation
element -- text links across the bottom of the feature --
wasn't used much, even though most people did look at it.
Of 11 out of 46 test subjects who viewed this feature, only
two used the navigation. Of those who did not use the navigation,
seven of them did look at it, the eyetracker revealed; two
people never looked at it. (The alternative to navigating
the content of the feature from the bottom links was to click
through a series of arrows at the bottom of the screen.)
The visuals of this feature were charts and graphics -- no
photographs. As you can see from the heatmap
image below, fixations were fairly equal overall between text
and graphics, with a slight bias toward graphics.
This feature included several frames of content; you had
to click through multiple screens to see everything. Intensity
of reading fell off as the feature went on.
Most of the readers looked heavily at both text and graphics.
Of the light readers of this feature -- about one-quarter
of the group -- the tendency was to skim the graphics and
not read the text.
Several frames into the feature was an interactive Food Pyramid
graphic; users could click on the various components to get
additional information. Six of our group of 11 did get that
far into the graphic, but only three of them clicked to reveal
the hidden information.
There was also an interactive U.S. map earlier on, which
showed obesity rates during different years. The map auto-ran
to show changes, then the user could click on a year to see
the map change again. Four people clicked on the map after
the auto-run feature ended.
Possible lessons to be learned from this package:
- Charts and graphs appear to have eye-pulling power. In
fact, among people who did look at them, they drew more
eye fixations than most photos tested elsewhere in Eyetrack
III.
- Interactive components of a multimedia graphic may not
be overtly obvious to the user, and when they are too subtle,
people may overlook an interactive opportunity.
Multimedia story 5: Smart
Growth - KQED.com
This multimedia feature takes the form of a play-along graphic.
You read some text instructions, then "build" your
own community -- using illustrated components like roads,
buildings, and parks -- based on land-use choices. At the
end of the short game, you receive a score and a page of advice
(presented in text).
This game held the attention of all nine of the 46 test subjects
who viewed the feature. Every one of them played through to
the end.
Six of the nine read most of the text on all the frames of
the feature thoroughly. The text blocks were all short, except
for the final score-and-advice page. About half the group
thoroughly read the final score and advice text; the other
half skimmed it.
Possible lessons to be learned from this package:
- It would appear that interactive games -- at least short
ones with clear instructions -- can hold people's attention.
This multimedia feature is typical of the Web slideshow genre.
It features a series of slides of Corvettes through the years,
with audio narration by a New York Times automobile correspondent.
Upon loading the page, the audio starts and the feature auto-runs
to show several car photos and accompanying captions. The
only user-control option is to stop the sound temporarily.
Once the feature has run completely through, the user can
click thumbnails below the main image pane to review the other
cars.
The heatmap
below shows that the main parts of the feature -- the large
photo and the accompanying captions (which changed along with
the photos) -- were looked at about equally by the six of
our 46 test subjects who viewed.
What's interesting about this heatmap (which compiles viewing
data from this feature's entire run-time across all participants
who visited it) is that it shows several people clicking on
the large photo, as though they expected the click to do something.
(You'll note that one person -- ID no. 1540 -- not only clicked
the photos several times, but also clicked the caption text.)
That behavior is quite common, we found. People
often click photos, and a minority of people routinely
click random points on the page as they look around.
Another interesting observation is that while the audio was
running, people tended to read the captions less.
This feature included a banner ad underneath the editorial
content, and five of the six viewers looked at the ad.
Overall, however, this feature didn't seem to hold viewers.
Two left after seeing the first car; two left on the second
car; one left on the third. Only one person looked at most
of the car photos, and that was by switching between photos
via manual control. No one let the feature auto-run in its
entirety.
Possible lessons to be learned from this package:
- Auto-run slideshows perhaps should have a user-control
option. No one let this auto-run through to completion.
We saw a similar desire to control the flow of content in
the MSNBC Big Picture feature described above.
- When there's audio narration, as in this feature, there
can be too much stimulation when the viewer is expected
to listen to the narration, look at a photo, and read a
caption. Perhaps it makes sense to build in pauses in the
audio to allow for text reading.
Multimedia story 7: Saddam's
Sons - CBSNews.com
In a fairly small screen footprint, this feature includes
lots of content: photo slideshows, video, infographics, maps,
and text. Navigation through all the content options occurs
by clicking a list of topics from the main page, and from
inside pages by a pop-up menu in the upper right.
Eight people in our test pool of 46 viewed this multimedia
project.
The majority of pages of this feature included an image or
photo slideshow in the main content window, with explanatory
text on the right side. Overall, the eyetracker showed that
people spent more time looking at the text than the images.
The heatmap
image below is typical of what we saw as people viewed this
feature, with heaviest eye fixation on the text.
Of the text blocks, many were too long to fit in a single
screen and included a scroll bar for further reading. Six
of eight people did get to a page where text scrolled, and
five of them did scroll to read further at least once. However,
in the majority of instances they did not bother to scroll
-- rather just reading or skimming the visible text.
Because the overall size of the feature is small, the photographs
are of modest size, too (most often 370 x 278 pixels). Perhaps
that partly explains why photos weren't viewed much and text
dominated the eye activity on this feature. The only time
photos were looked at more heavily was when people viewed
the slideshows, which required clicking through to see a series
of images. However, only two people viewed a slideshow.
This feature also included a banner ad at the bottom of the
screen. Only two people ever looked at the ad; most concentrated
their gaze on the editorial content and never ventured far
enough down to look directly at the ad, even for a fraction
of a second.
Possible lessons to be learned from this package:
- We wonder if the small footprint of this feature and the
resulting modest size of the images led to the dominance
of text.
Add/view
feedback on multimedia reports
|
