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Navigation Placement on News Homepages
The majority of news websites carry navigation -- links to
other major sections of the site -- in the left columns of
their homepages. Second most common is the top navigation
bar, tucked under the site's nameplate and above page content.
Some even carry left AND top navigation, like WashingtonPost.com.
Others use 3-way wrap-around navigation -- that is, navigation
elements are repeated at top, left, and right -- like Newsday.com.
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.
In part of our Eyetrack III testing of news website user
behavior, we had test participants view five sets of homepage
designs created by Nik Wilets, chief information architect
for Morris Digital
Works. (There were 10 homepages total, with each set of
two being identical except for one variable that differed.)
Among those sets, the designs used variable navigation placement.
Looking across the eye movements tracked on all those pages,
researchers were able to discern some patterns relating to
navigation placement. Because the navigation elements were
not tightly controlled variables in this particular part of
our testing, we present below some observations about navigation
placement on news websites (not definitive findings).
Click on the thumbnails below to bring up images of the homepage
designs.
Left navigation:
Top navigation:
Right navigation:
Observation: On homepages, top navigation captures more
views than left or right navigation.
A common finding throughout this eyetracking research is
that items placed in close proximity to major headlines are
viewed more because of "visual bleed." An item close
to a prominent headline will receive more direct views (or
"fixations") than an item that is separated by white
space or a visual barrier like a rule (or line).
We observed the same pattern with top navigation, which is
closest of all the navigation placements to a homepage's top
headlines and also received the most views of the three navigation
placements.
As you can see in the heatmap
images below, a greater percentage of people looked at the
top navigation element than looked at left or right navigation.
(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.)
Now, compare those pages to the one below, which has left
navigation. Notice how the navigation receives considerably
less viewing.
There is some fear among news Web designers that top navigation
-- because it's typically a thin bar running horizontally
across the page that doesn't occupy as much screen real estate
as a typical left navigation scheme -- won't be as visible.
Perhaps these eyetracking observations will help to ease those
fears.
This chart shows the percentage of people who saw the navigation
component of each of our homepages (that is, who looked directly
at it, or in eyetracking terminology had a fixation). The
top performers were the top-navigation elements on homepages
No. 2 and 7,
followed by the top navigation on homepage No. 4.
(Take these numbers with a grain of salt; this particular
part of the research did not use tightly controlled variables.)
When it comes to left and right navigation on homepages,
the percent-seeing figures are very close for both. The right
navigation actually has a very slight advantage. Of course,
this might have been the novelty factor at play; it's unusual
to find right navigation on a website, so that might have
affected viewing behavior.
Observation: At the article level, left navigation is viewed
most frequently.
Our test subjects also viewed a variety of article pages,
with navigation placement corresponding to the homepages they
saw before clicking on the article link.
What we found was that with articles, left navigation was
viewed 18 percent more often by our testers than either top
or right navigation placement. Our test participants viewed
top and right navigation about equally.
But the right navigation received more attention time (more
eye fixations) on average than either left or top -- though
it was seen less. People who looked at right navigation spent
more time focusing on it than navigation placed elsewhere.
(That could have been because of the novelty of seeing navigation
on the right side of the page.)
Top navigation performed better than left in terms of number
of average fixations -- mirroring top-placement's better performance
on homepages.
Remember, page design varied along with navigation placement;
this particular part of the Eyetrack III testing didn't use
tightly controlled variables. So use these observations with
caution; the figures cited above would not hold up to statistical
analysis.
Observation: People didn't spend much time looking at navigation
on our homepages.
On average, our participants spent 1.2 seconds looking at
the homepage navigation element, out of a total average of
14.5 seconds spent viewing a homepage. This was fairly consistent
between the various homepage designs, with the navigation
element receiving only a second or two of most test subjects'
eye time. The only exception was on a compact homepage, which
is discussed in the item below this.
Observation: Navigation gets used most on compact homepages.
Navigation is critical to compact pages and less critical
for extended pages with lots of content. Forty percent of
participants clicked on the navigation bar when viewing homepage
No. 2, which was a compact-design
page with only five headline links and did not require scrolling
to see the entire page. This was far more than any other page.
The least-clicked navigation was on homepage No. 7
(which was the same design as No. 2, but with 17 headlines).
On that homepage, only 7 percent of participants clicked on
the navigation.
When we look at all the clicks on a page, we find that on
homepage No. 2 (compact), nearly 30 percent of the clicks
were on the navigation. No other page came anywhere close
to that; the average for all other pages was 8 percent of
all clicks going to navigation elements. The least-clicked
navigation was on homepage No. 7 -- the expanded version of
the No. 2 page design.
This suggests that homepages with lots of content and options
for clicking on articles may see modest usage of navigation
elements, but rather can expect users to click on article
links as navigation inside the site. The majority of news
websites in the real world -- at this writing -- have expanded
homepages with lots of content. We might expect, then, that
navigation on such pages isn't directing many people to inside
sections; instead, homepage content is.
Tips:
Here are some tips based on what we observed on navigation
in this part of the research:
- Do
not take this report to indicate that top navigation placement
is THE way to go for homepages. Rather, take it to mean
that there's probably no reason based on these observations
to avoid it. The advantage to top placement, of course,
is that it can be compact, opening up a left column for
editorial and/or advertising content.
- As
for left and right navigation, it appears that right placement
-- which is unusual among news websites -- is a viable option.
The performance of right-nav placement was very similar
to left.
- The
navigation strategy you employ depends, in part, on how
you view your page. Does your homepage provide a brief summary
of headlines (in which case our observations suggest users
rely on navigation more) or a comprehensive extended table
of contents to the materials inside (in which case our observations
suggest users rely on navigation less)? For a compact homepage
-- especially one that fits entirely on a single screen
-- the navigation is more heavily used by readers. If you
have an expanded homepage, be aware that the navigation
may not be viewed or used much, since readers are clicking
on links to browse through the site. So, if you want users
to go to your business section, for example, be sure there
are business article links and/or blurbs on your homepage.
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