According to an article in the Business Day Technology section of the New York Times, a recent study published by Jakob Nielsen, principal in the Nielsen Norman Group, shows people ignore generic online photos.
Jakob Nielsen, principal in the Nielsen Norman Group
Websites are a hodgepodge of poor design and cluttered content, Nielsen fights to clean up this mess by use of eye-tracking software and research he chronicles in his blog.
“Our eyetracking studies have documented a dramatic gap in how users approach website images,” explains Nielsen on his blog, UseIt.com/Alertbox. “Some types of pictures are completely ignored, this is typically the case for big feel-good images that are purely decorative, and other types of pictures are treated as important content and scrutinized. I’ve spent countless columns ranting against the first type of images, sadly, many websites are still more obsessed with showing off than with getting to the point.”
The way to excite readers, Nielsen’s study found, is to offer an engaging experience, which means focusing on meeting needs. This lesson holds equally for corporate, non-profits and universities. The new study finds that random or stock images on Web sites are completely ignored by users, add more clutter to the page and don’t necessarily help from a business standpoint.
Nielsen’s study finds the commonality across all examples is that users pay attention to information-carrying images that show content that’s relevant to the task at hand. And users ignore purely decorative images that don’t add real content to the page. So much fluff — of which there’s too much already on the Web.
If placing photos on a page, it is important that they be interesting, storytelling photos of real people shot by a professional photographer. These photos build the brand’s value on the site.
“Invest in good photo shoots: a great photographer can add a fortune to your website’s business value,” says Nielsen on his blog. According to Nielsen, “After all most sites are full of fluff — of which there’s too much already on the Web.”
Read the New York Time’s article here.
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